THE  JAMES  K.   MOFFITT  FUND. 

LIBRARY  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


GIFT  OF 

JAMES  KENNEDY  MOFFITT 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  '86. 


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MR.  AND  MRS.  ROUNSEVELLE  WILDMAN  AND  THEIR  CHILDREN—  ^ 
ALL  LOST  IN  THE  WRECK./. MR.     WILDMAN     WAS     UNITED     STATES  J 
HONGKONG  AND  WAS  FORMERLY  EDITOR  AND«7 


CONSUL-GENERAL    AT 


PROPRIETOR    OF 


^_  ^-    THE  "OVERLAND  MONTHLY."  ^_ 

-Ki^y  4^  yam e v-^^    ~ '^  1>*v-a^i  if*^ • 


1 


vn 


iScUldMATL 
C^3 


ValBroftli£Mal(^an.6oast 


COPYRIGHT,   1900, 
BY  LOTHROP 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY. 


Nortoooli  i|re«« 

J.  S.  Cuihing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  St  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


To 

Collis   P.    Huntington 

in  grateful  remembrance  of 
many  kindnesses  •     •      •      • 


Hong  Kong 

II  November y  '^99 


82873 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 


I 

WE  were  speaking  the  other  day  of 
magazines,  —  cut  and  uncut,  —  and 
I  maintained  with  some  warmth  that,  to  me, 
a  magazine  was  incomplete  unless  it  was 
accompanied  by  a  paper-cutter.  Possibly  I 
was  thinking  somewhat  vainly  of  a  certain 
paper-knife  that  represented  a  Malayan  kris^ 
with  a  handle  inlaid  with  yellow  gold  from 
Mt.  Ophir,  —  albeit  I  was  serious  in  my 
advocacy  of  the  uncut  pages  of  my  favorite 
magazines. 

Both  the  Poet  and  the  Contributor  smiled 
pityingly  at  my  flushed  face,  and  said  that  I 
would  soon  be  insisting  upon  having  all  our 
printing  done  on  an  old  Franklin  press,  and 

5 


6  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctttm 

the  staff  putting  on  perukes,  as  it  is  the 
fashion  nowadays  to  prefer  the  things  that 
were  to  the  things  that  be. 

There  is  something  deUciously  fascinating 
to  me  in  a  big  arm-chair,  a  magazine  redo- 
lent of  the  odors  of  the  press,  an  open 
fire,  and  a  paper-cutter  —  not  a  penknife. 
I  smoke;  so,  if  I  am  allowed,  I  add  a 
Havana  to  the  hst. 

I  am  jealous  of  my  solitude  at  such  times. 
I  love  the  sharp  buzz  and  low  crinkle  of 
the  stiff  paper  as  the  blade  runs  swiftly  up 
the  virgin  page.  A  little  shower  of  finely- 
powdered  flakes,  dry  and  impalpable,  marks 
the  course  of  the  ivory  knife,  and  sifts  softly 
down  on  my  sleeve. 

I  can  change  the  arch-fire  for  a  burst  of 
summer  sunshine  and  the  shady  nook  of 
a  deep  veranda ;  I  can  substitute  for  the 
leather-bound  chair  a  long  rattan  one,  but 
the  neatly  trimmed  pages  of  a  modern 
magazine  irritate  me,  —  my  harmless  illu- 
sion   that    was    created    for    me    is    gone. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctttm  7 

There   is   no   privacy  in  the  machine-made 
thing. 

I  would  as  soon  think  of  throwing  the 
Sanctum  open  to  the  world,  as  lose  my  even- 
ing dissipation  with  magazine  and  paper- 
cutter.  In  my  fancy  I  am  on  a  voyage  of 
discovery  to  scenes  and  lands  that  have  been 
my  day-dreams.  As  I  cut  the  first  page  I 
find  myself  in  Egypt,  —  in  the  shadow  of 
the  pyramids,  with  the  yellow  Nile  flowing, 
calm  and  stately,  between  rows  of  yellow 
palms,  —  in  the  narrow,  tortuous  streets  of 
Cairo,  among  Jews  and  Copts,  Hindoos  and 
Medes,  men  in  skirts  and  women  in  panta- 
loons, dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  in  Cappa- 
docia,.  in  Pontus  and  Pamphylia,  —  amid 
strings  of  camels  laden  with  red  beans  and 
golden-yellow  lentils,  —  water-carriers  hug- 
ging uncanny  goatskins,  and  naked  Nubians 
staggering  under  great  hair  sacks  of  corn. 
I  turn  over  the  pages ;  my  paper-cutter 
sings  quietly ;  a  little  flurry  of  white  dust 
falls  unnoticed  on  my  clothes,  and  I  have 


8  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

taken  up  the  thread  of  a  serial  where  I  laid 
it  reluctantly  by  the  month  before. 

For  a  half-hour  I  read,  and  cut,  and  read, 
and  forget  the  spluttering  fire  before  me. 
Possibly  I  am  Hving  with  Bret  Harte*s  char- 
acters, —  my  old,  true  friends,  —  here  on  this 
sunny  Pacific  slope,  or,  mayhap,  with  Mr. 
Howells'  people  of  society  and  business ; 
or,  now,  Stevenson,  Kipling,  or  Craddock 
cause  the  pages  to  sparkle.  But  my  voy- 
age is  not  ended,  when  I  at  last  draw  a  deep 
sigh  as  I  come  to  the  dreaded  words,  "  Con- 
tinued in  our  next.'*  In  a  moment  my  eyes 
run  down  a  charming  bit  of  verse  of  society, 
and  up  to  a  well-known  name  that  beckons 
me  on  to  a  tour  through  the  galleries  of  the 
Louvre,  or  down  the  dim,  translucent  aisles 
of  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne,  with  its  mar- 
vellous windows  and  lace-like  stone  carvings. 

My  knife  severs  two  more  pages.  "  What 
next  ? "  I  think.  I  am  not  disappointed. 
I  meditatively  run  my  ivory  plaything 
through  my  hair  as  the  last  treasure  of  the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  9 

great  monthly  lies  open  before  me.  My 
cigar  has  gone  out,  —  my  placid  voyage 
among  the  storied  pages  ended  for  the 
nonce. 

Of  course,  I  admit  that  there  are  people 
who  never  read  magazines,  cut  or  uncut ; 
but  then  there  are  people  who,  since  the 
time  of  Adam,  have  run  after  strange  gods, 
and  there  are  others  who  even  prefer  the 
Sunday  newspapers  to  the  best  of  maga- 
zines. Between  books  and  magazines  there 
can  be  no  rivalry.  Between  magazines  and 
Sunday  newspapers  there  is  none. 

There  are  books  on  my  Hbrary  shelves 
that  I  read  with  pleasure,  and  cannot  pick 
up  without  experiencing  a  sensation  of 
delight,  although  I  have,  to  some  extent, 
forgotten  their  plots  and  often  their  charac- 
ters. On  turning  over  their  pages,  snatching 
a  word  here  and  a  sentence  there,  running 
down  a  page  or  over  a  chapter,  trying  to  dis- 
cover what  endears  them  to  me,  I  find  that 


lo         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

this  lies  not  always  in  what  is  written  or  what 
is  pictured,  but  the  associations  and  scenes 
that  the  novel  recalls.  I  find  that  I  have, 
in  the  past,  in  some  manner,  insensibly  but 
indelibly,  added  to  the  scenery  of  the  book 
the  scenery  of  the  place  at  which  it  was 
read ;  with  its  characters  I  associate  the  peo- 
ple I  knew  at  the  time.  Its  sunsets  are  the 
sunsets  gazed  upon  as  I  read,  not  the  sun- 
sets of  which  I  read.  I  cannot  separate  the 
book  from  the  place ;  I  would  not  if  I 
could. 

The  quaint  mountain  heroes  of  Charles 
Egbert  Craddock's  "  The  Prophet  of  the 
Great  Smoky  Mountain  '*  recall  an  autumn 
trip  down  the  Chesapeake  Bay,  from  Balti- 
more to  Old  Point  Comfort ;  excursions 
into  the  charming  realm  of  that  picturesque 
old  Virginian  Atlantis,  the  East  Shore ; 
rides  over  its  sandy  roads  amid  the  resin- 
ous odor  of  the  pine  woods ;  visits  in  fas- 
cinating old  colonial  mansions ;  twisting, 
snake-like    lagoons    bordered    by    funereal 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  1 1 

cypress  trees  hung  with  ghostly  gray  moss ; 
sober,  rickety  little  towns ;  ruinous  board 
shanties  filled  with  genial  black  faces ;  ter- 
rapin and  snipe.  The  rugged,  denuded 
balds  of  Tennessee  can  never  escape  the 
companionship  of  the  marshes  and  sand 
dunes  of  Maryland  and  Virginia. 

"  Jane  Eyre ''  carries  me  away  to  Southern 
Kansas  and  Northern  Indian  Territory.  I 
take  again  a  long,  hot,  dusty  ride  in  the 
caboose  of  a  cattle  train,  and  through  a  dirty 
window  catch  glimpses  of  dirtier  Indian  tepees 
and  dried  sunflowers,  on  an  endless  plain 
of  burnt  buffalo  grass. 

"  Middlemarch "  finds  me  ever  in  a  big 
arm-chair  in  my  father's  study,  with  the 
howling  winds  of  frozen  Ontario  in  my  ears. 
I  can  see  my  father's  silvered  hair,  and  hear 
the  sound  of  his  faltering  steps. 

The  ice  and  snow  of  that  winter  melt 
before  the  picture  that  is  summoned  up  by 
Dumas's  glorious  "  Musketeers."  It  is  that 
of  a  tropical  island  in  a  sunlit  sea ;   spiced 

^'b  nARy* 

or  TH» 

UNIVERSITY 


12  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

breezes  from  almond  and  clove  trees ;  the 
sound  of  a  great  cocoanut  dropping  in  the 
warm  sand  at  my  feet ;  the  red  sails  of  a 
Malay  tongkang;  the  somnolent  washing  of 
tepid  waters  over  a  coral  reef;  the  nude 
forms  of  brown-eyed  natives.  D'Artagnan, 
Athos,  Aramisj  Porthos,  Richelieu,  and  Louis 
Quatorze  acted  their  parts  for  me  under  a 
great  almond  tree  in  the  Straits  of  Malacca. 
Strangely  enough,  Daudet's  pathetic 
"Jack"  brings  back  the  Nile,  the  Pyra- 
mids, water-carriers,  the  date-palm,  yellow 
sands,  and  swaying  camels  laden  with  cotton, 
on  the  deserts  along  the  Suez ;  while  Ebers's 
"  Egyptian  Princess "  holds  tenaciously  to 
the  Boulevards  des  Italiens  and  Capucines, 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  and  the  golden 
dome  of  Les  Invalides.  So  the  iterative 
splash  of  the  water-wheels  of  the  Nile,  the 
lunge  of  the  bullocks  as  they  go  down 
through  the  soft  mud  to  drink,  the  cry  of 
the  muezzin  before  the  mosque  of  Hassan, 
the  play  of  the  fountains  in  the  Jardin  des 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  13 

Plantes,  the  flicker  of  the  converging  lines 
of  street-lamps,  and  the  deep  bells  of  Notre 
Dame  are  inextricably  mixed ;  only  Paris  is 
summoned  up  by  the  Egyptian  novel,  and 
Egypt  by  the  Parisian. 

It  was  during  an  autumn  trip  through 
the  mountains  and  sage-bush  plains  of 
Idaho  that  I  read  "  Far  from  the  Madding 
Crowd."  The  title  of  the  book  would  have 
been  apropos  to  my  surroundings,  had  I  not 
been  in  company  with  a  detachment  of 
Uncle  Sam's  soldiers  and  all  the  parapher- 
nalia of  a  moving  camp.  I  read  the  book 
in  snatches,  as  we  camped,  now  under  the 
sheltering  crags  of  a  rugged  spur  of  the 
Bitter  Root  during  the  noonday  heat ;  now 
in  the  cool,  almost  chilling  shadows  of  a 
canon,  to  which  the  reflections  of  our  many 
fires  lent  an  added  touch  of  weirdness ;  or 
now  among  desert  wastes  of  played-out 
placers.  The  quiet  heaths  and  sober  country 
homes  of  provincial  England  and  the  homely 
folk  that  peopled  them,  stand  side  by  side 


14  ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

with  vast  mountain  solitudes,  mining  camps, 
Indian  tepees,  and  all  the  rugged  peculi- 
arities of  Western  life. 

Between  the  lines  of  Warner's  "  Little 
Journey  in  the  World,"  I  see  a  journey  to 
an  old  world ;  an  ocean  trip  over  the  Pacific. 
I  smell  the  salt  air  of  northern  latitudes  and 
drink  in  the  warm  breezes  of  the  Japanese 
coasts.  I  catch  myself  Hfting  my  eyes  from 
its  pages  to  follow  the  bounding  course  of  a 
fat,  awkward  dolphin,  or  to  rush  to  the  rail 
and  gaze  out  upon  a  black  spot  that  the 
quartermaster  assures  me  is  a  whale.  A 
storm  and  a  touch  of  mal-de-mer  break  into 
the  thread  of  the  story  for  a  few  days,  and 
then  I  suddenly  neglect  its  fascinations  in 
the  more  insistent  fascinations  of  the  harbor 
of  Yokohama,  filled  with  its  junks,  house- 
boats, and  sampans, 

A  delightful  trip  down  the  St.  Lawrence 
to  Montreal  and  Quebec,  and  into  the  heart 
of  the  White  Mountains,  is  associated  with 
Stockton's  quaint   story,  "The  Late  Mrs. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  15 

Null,"  while  my  famous  predecessor's  "Snow 
Bound  at  Eagle's"  and  a  little  hunting 
camp  in  the  north  woods  of  Pennsylvania 
are  forever  joined  together.  Haggard's 
"  Col.  Quaritch,  V.  C."  and  two  picturesque 
weeks  spent  in  the  palace  of  the  Sultan  of 
Johore  — " 

The  Contributor.  —  "  See  here!  I  move,  out 
of  pure  revenge  for  past  slights,  that  the 
speaker  begin  chronologically  with  the  days 
of  the  '  Huggermuggers '  and  '  Robinson 
Crusoe,'  and  come  on  down,  regularly,  to  the 
'Yellow  Aster.'" 

The  Artist.  —  "I  am  curiotis  to  know  if 
the  '  Yellow  Aster '  was  perused  at  the  North 
Pole." 

The  F arson.  —  "  If  so,  the  combination 
was  a  happy  one." 

The  Sanctum.  —  "  Fie  on  the  Parson  ! " 

The  Office  Boy.  —  "  Proof!  " 


II 

IF  our  chats  on  indifferent  topics  lack  the 
true  "  back-log  '*  flavor  that  all  readers 
of  Charles  Dudley  Warner  and  Ik  Marvel 
have  learned  to  expect  when  a  bevy  of  indi- 
viduals like  unto  ourselves  begins  to  talk,  it 
is  all  owing  to  our  want  of  big  arm-chairs  and 
an  old-fashioned  open  fireplace.  We  have  a 
sort  of  a  two  by  two-and-a-half  hole  in  the 
wall,  back  of  the  Reader's  desk,  that  our 
landlord  assured  us  was  a  fireplace,  but  we 
have  never  investigated  it,  and  we  have 
nothing  substantial  to  burn  in  it. 

The  Reader  is  the  only  member  of  the 
Circle  that  has  ever  seriously  broached  the 
subject  of  experimenting  with  it.  But  as  all 
the  emanations  of  our  collective  brains  have, 
sooner  or  later,  to  pass  through  the  Reader's 
hands  before  being  immortalized  in  print,  we 
are,  as  a  body,  naturally,  though  guardedly, 

l6 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  17 

sceptical  of  his  disinterestedness.  An  open 
fire  would  never  do  in  an  editorial  sanctum. 
In  fact,  I  never  heard  of  one  being  so  badly 
placed.  It  is  certainly  to  the  purpose,  be  it 
enthusiastically  antique  or  garishly  fin-de- 
siecky  in  your  own  study,  in  the  quietude  of 
your  own  home.  Then  if,  in  a  moment 
of  sanity,  you  commit  a  manuscript  of  your 
own  making  to  its  purging  flames,  —  well 
and  good !  you  commit  the  act  in  cold 
blood,  with  malice  aforethought.  But  in 
the  Sanctum,  —  where  there  are  a  thousand 
and  one  little  annoyances  and  a  thousand 
and  one  little  interruptions,  —  a  faulty  con- 
struction, a  bit  of  bad  grammar,  a  misspelled 
word,  a  sentence  lacking  a  predicate,  or  an 
illegible  "  hand-write,"  is  apt  to  cause  the 
coolest  of  us  —  a  cool  man  is  often  lazy  or 
stupid,  so  none  of  us  bid  for  that  distinction 
—  to  be  hasty,  and  to  do  things  that  he 
would  wish  undone. 

That  the  Poet's  verses  or  the  Contribu- 
tor's tragedy  should  find  their  way  into  the 


1 8  As  Talked  in  the  Sa^tctum 

Reader*s  ever  handy  Gehenna,  would,  with 
all  due  respect  to  them,  not  be  as  serious  a 
loss,  I  think  even  they  will  admit,  as  the 
disappearance  of  the  unnumbered  manu- 
scripts that  come  weekly  to  the  Reader's 
hand  with  the  deprecating  little  request,  "  In 
case  they  are  not  found  available,  kindly 
return  with  the  enclosed  postage/* 

It  is  possible  to  rescue  from  the  waste- 
basket  a  manuscript  which  its  gentle  author 
values  above  all  earthly  price,  and  in  the 
inditing  of  which  he  has  refused  to  be  fet- 
tered by  the  absurd  rules  of  Murray  or  the 
unreasonable  dictums  of  Webster ;  but  "  all 
the  king's  oxen  and  all  the  king's  men  " 
cannot  undo  the  five  minutes'  work  of  a 
poetic  arch-fire  and  the  Reader's  inexcusable 
rancor. 

Yes,  an  arch-fire,  however  much  it  might 
stimulate  the  quality  or  flow  of  our  Sanctum 
talk,  would  surely  bankrupt  the  magazine  in 
a  month.  We  must  be  contented  with  our 
painted  radiator  and  big  south  window. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  19 

The  Contributor  is,  in  politics,  a  pessimist 
of  the  most  troublesome  kind.  No  one 
ever  accused  him  of  being  a  Republican,  and 
he  would  leave  the  room  in  high  dudgeon  if 
he  thought  that  we  considered  him  a  Demo- 
crat. He  is  not  a  Mugwump,  for  he  dis- 
likes theories  and  believes  that  to  the  victor 
belongs  the  spoils,  consequently  he  is  not 
a  purist;  while,  of  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men,  a  "  reformer  "  is  a  thing  he  most 
despises.  He  is  simply  a  citizen  of  the 
republic,  who  believes  that  "  horse-sense" 
is  the  best  practical  guide  and  that  it  is  re- 
quired in  governmental  affairs  quite  as  much 
as  in  household  matters. 

To  show  his  utter  contempt  for  all  parties, 
he  once  drew  up  a  scheme  of  government 
with  the  following  men  at  the  head  of  it ; 
that  he  invaded  the  graveyards  did  not  em- 
barrass him ;  his  names  only  stood  for  quali- 
ties, he  said :  — 

President,  George  Washington ;  Vice-Presi- 
dent, George  William  Curtis ;  Secretary  of 


20         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

State,  James  G.  Blaine  ;  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  William  M.  Stewart ;  Secretary 
of  War,  Benjamin  F.  Butler ;  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  Captain  Alfred  T.  Mahan. 

"  I  am  in  favor  of  more  dignified  exclu- 
siveness  at  the  White  House;  more  true, 
progressive  Americanism  in  the  State  Depart- 
ment, and  a  broader  conception  of  the 
national  needs  in  the  Treasury,**  he  explained. 
"  The  Army  wants  less  red  tape  and  more 
organization  and  effectiveness ;  the  Navy,  as 
many  modern  war-ships  as  are  owned  by  any 
other  first-class  power,  or  more.  We  want 
Americanism  instead  of  partisanship  ;  horse- 
sense  instead  of  sounding  phrases." 

The  Poet,  —  "  The  Contributor  is  like  the 
minister  who  was  engaged  by  a  little  Con- 
necticut town  to  preach  hell-fire  and  brim- 
stone, and  board  himself" 

The  Contributor  sniffed  disdainfully,  and 
ran  a  hand  through  his  scanty  hair.  "  The 
tariff  bill  has  just  been  settled  again,  after  a 
year's  struggle  and  debate  in  the  midst  of 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  21 

the  hardest  times  the  country  has  ever  seen/' 
he  said.  "Where  are  the  reforms  that 
Mr.  Cleveland  so  vaingloriously  promised  ? 
Where  are  the  vast  benefits  that  the  laborer 
was  to  receive  ?  Where  are  the  good  times 
that  the  new  tariff  was  to  bring,  and  which 
was  to  have  been  passed  by  a  special  session 
of  Congress  within  a  month  after  Mr.  Cleve- 
land came  into  power  ?  Where  are  last 
winter's  snows  ?  Is  there  any  '  common 
sense  *  in  tearing  up  our  entire  system  of 
tariff  laws  every  four  years,  making  them  the 
sport  of  trusts  and  corporations,  reducing 
them  to  a  basis  of  stocks,  oil,  and  pork,  —  a 
thing  to  gamble  on, — just  to  please  some 
insane  idea  of  a  useless  party  ?  " 

The  Reader.  —  "I  prefer  to  answer  for  last 
winter's  snows." 

The  Contributor,  —  "  Does  not  this  Wilson 
Bill  strike  you  all  as  a  pitiful  bit  of  statecraft, 
when  the  fact  is  taken  into  consideration  that 
five  hundred  brains  labored  over  it  for  twelve 
months  ?     Would  you  exchange  for  it  the 


22  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

work  of  the  man's  brain  that  discovered  the 
telegraph,  or  the  work  of  the  man's  brain 
that  invented  the  sewing-machine  ?  Does  it 
compare  for  one  moment  with  Newton's  Law 
of  Gravitation  or  even  with  Blaine's  doctrine 
of  Reciprocity?  If  the  Wilson  Bill,  the 
plaything  of  the  Sugar  Trust  and  the  laugh- 
ing stock  of  Europe,  is  the  best  we  can 
expect  from  our  five  or  six  hundred  repre- 
sentatives, it  is  time  that  Free  Trade  be  in- 
corporated in  our  Constitution." 

The  Parson,  —  "It  strikes  me  that  we 
have  listened  to  like  tirades  on  the  same  sub- 
ject from  our  colleague  before.  For  one,  I 
trust  that  the  tariff  fight  has  been  a  lesson  to 
our  legislators,  as  the  strike  was  to  our  capi- 
talists, and  that,  now  that  it  is  at  last  settled, 
the  banks  will  open  their  vaults  and  money 
will  be  easier." 

The  Poet,  —  "I  rise  to  submit  for  the 
Sanctum's  approval,  the  following  motto 
for  Mr.  Cleveland's  office  wall :  '  When  in 
doubt,  go  duck-shooting.'  " 


As  Talked  in  the  Smictum  23 

The  Occasional  Caller,  —  "  For  one,  I  pin 
my  faith  to  the  Democratic  tariff." 

The  Contributor,  —  "  Take  my  advice  and 
use  a  safety-pin." 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof! " 


ni 

WE  were  aimlessly  discussing  the  Chi- 
nese-Japanese-Korean War,  when  the 
Parson  entered  the  room,  accompanied  by 
our  Occasional  Visitor.  We  were  unaffect- 
edly thankful  for  the  interruption.  I  think 
we  were  growing  blase  ;  then,  too,  the  sun 
was  pouring  recklessly  into  our  big  south 
window,  flooding  the  Artist's  table  and 
spreading  among  us  a  spirit  of  benevolent 
discontent.  The  Artist  should  have  pulled 
down  the  shade,  which  he  did  not  do ;  no 
one  else  felt  called  upon  to  make  the  exer- 
tion, and  the  Office  Boy  was  out  after  proof 
The  Contributor,  who  had  taken  part  in 
Sherman's  March  to  the  Sea,  and  was  not 
ashamed  of  it,  had  been  maintaining  with  his 
usual  "  servigrousness,"  that  war  was  an  ele- 
ment, not  an  accident  of  humanity ;  that 
H 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  25 

every  war  marked  an  onward  step  in  the 
march  of  civilization ;  that  it  was  as  much  of 
a  necessity  now  as  it  was  when  the  Lord  sent 
out  the  hosts  of  Israel  to  do  battle  with  the 
Philistines. 

"It  is  the  human  expression  of  a  divine 
axiom,  —  fear  begets  wisdom/**  he  had  just 
remarked.  "  A  race  that  fears  neither  God 
nor  man  eats  itself  up ;  or,  as  the  Bible  puts 
it,  a  'nation  that  will  not  serve  God  must 
perish.* " 

This  last  was  thrown  out  after  the  Parson 
made  his  entry,  and  was  meant  for  him. 
The  Contributor  honestly  thinks  he  is  wily; 
but  his  sophistry  is,  broadly  speaking,  too 
palpable  to  raise  even  a  pitying  smile. 

The  Parson  coughed  deprecatingly,  —  a 
ministerial  clearing  of  the  decks  for  action, 
as  it  were.  When  the  Parson  was  younger, 
he  had  a  chance  to  turn  the  other  cheek  and 
remain  safely  at  home  when  his  country  was 
in  danger;  he  went  to  the  front — as  a  pri- 
vate —  and  stayed  there  a  year  after  the  Con- 


26         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

tributor  returned  with  the  wound  in  his  hip 
that  has  so  much  to  do  with  the  acridity  of 
his  temper.  For  the  last  twenty-odd  years 
the  Parson  has  prescribed  the  doctrine  of 
peace  and  good  will  in  a  fashionable  church 
that  has  high  gothic  arches,  among  which 
his  voice  at  times  plays  hide-and-seek,  and 
a  double  row  of  heavy  pseudo-granite  pil- 
lars, behind  which  he  is,  as  often,  "  tho*  lost 
to  view  to  memory  dear."  In  the  winter- 
time the  hot  air  from  the  church  furnaces 
ascends  to  the  twilight  of  the  groined  ceil- 
ings, there  to  keep  company  with  the  good 
man's  voice,  to  the  shivering  discomfort  of 
his  listeners. 

We  have  chaffed  him  many  times  about 
this  absurd  style  of  building  the  churches 
of  his  denomination,  but  he  always  smiles 
good-naturedly,  asks  why  we  insist  on  com- 
ing Sunday  after  Sunday,  the  bare-faced 
fisher,  and  insists  that  we  would  not  feel  at 
home  listening  to  our  Bible  lesson  in  the 
orchestra  chairs  of  the  Baldwin. 


As  Talked  in  fnk'^^^^^im^^    27 


He  may  be  right ;  still  it  is  no  argument. 
Gothic  churches  are  to  blame  for  more  pneu- 
monia and  colds  in  the  head  than  all  the  fogs 
that  ever  came  in  through  the  Golden  Gate. 

The  Parson,  —  "I  have  heard  the  same 
thing  charged  to  the  account  of  funerals. 
The  arguments  are  all  on  the  side  of  cre- 
mation ;  still,  the  old-fashioned  burial  holds 
its  popularity." 

The  Reader,  —  "  Last  Sunday  I  sat  for  an 
hour  behind  a  mottled  pillar  in  the  Parson's 
cathedral.  I  heard  fourteen  words,  and  did 
not  escape  the  collection  plate.  T  left  in 
anything  but  a  Sunday  state  of  mind." 

When  Westminster  Abbey  was  built,  our 
ancestors  existed  in  stone  houses-of-refuge 
with  oiled  paper  in  the  windows.  To-day, 
the  poorest  of  us  live  in  houses  that  contain 
conveniences  that  Croesus,  Esquire,  could 
not  have  bought,  and  we  continue  to  wor- 
ship in  small  Westminster  Abbeys. 

The  Contributor,  —  "  Tut,  tut !  You  are 
wandering  from   the   question.     I  was   say- 


28  As  Talked  in  the  Sancttcm 

Ing  that  war  is  a  necessity,  —  at  least  it  is 
inevitable.  In  the  present  Chino-Japanese 
embroglio  there  may  be  no  high  principle 
involved.  Well  and  good !  The  Japanese 
have  in  twenty  years  lived  five  centuries  of 
national  life.  To  have  lived  through  the 
transition  state  of  modern  Japan  ought  to 
make  one  feel  preternaturally  old.  Discuss- 
ing Darwinism,  parliamentary  institutions, 
and  scientific  belligerence,  Japan  is  yet,  in 
time,  but  a  step  removed  from  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  old  Samuri  who,  not  further 
back  than  the  centennial  year,  greeted  us 
on  the  streets  of  the  then  treaty  port  of 
Kanagawa,  wore  a  cue  and  two  swords ; 
to-day,  but  for  a  certain  obliqueness  of  eyes 
and  scantiness  of  beard,  he  might  pass  for 
an  American,  in  his  neat  suit  of  dittoes  and 
black  high-hat.  Commodore  Perry's  guns 
began  what  Japan's  guns  will  perfect,  —  the 
complete  Americanizing  of  Japan.  Withal, 
the  Japanese  are  wise  in  their  day,  far-seeing 
in  their   policy.      When  the  United  States 


^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  29 

closed  her  doors  to  the  teeming  population 
of  the  Celestial  Empire,  Japan  was  quick  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  her  salvation  and 
international  importance  lay  in  discarding  her 
own  artistic  dress  for  one  of  Lowell  shoddy, 
substituting  a  democracy  for  an  oligarchy, 
buying  a  navy  and  opening  schools,  an  idea 
which  was  carried  out  with  a  parrot-like  imi- 
tativeness  and  an  owl-like  wisdom.  Its  his- 
torical uniqueness  lies  rather  in  its  rapid  and 
thorough  fulfilment  than  in  its  conception." 

The  Occasional  Visitor,  —  "  There  is  noth- 
ing slow  about  the  Japanese  tutelary  simula- 
crum of  Father  Time  !  " 

The  Contributor,  —  "  This  war,  moreover, 
will  do  more  to  open  China  to  the  world 
than  a  thousand  years  of  commerce,  mis- 
sions, and  intercourse.  Whether  Japan  is 
the  victor  or  China  successfully  resists  her 
attacks,  makes  no  difference.  The  vast 
stagnant  pool  has  been  stirred,  and  the 
poison  that  has  lurked  over  it  must  rise. 
The  only  thing  I   fear  is,  that,  when  once 


30         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

the   great    Chinese    hive    begins    to  swarm, 
there  will  be  no  stopping  it/' 

The  Parson,  —  "Then  you  admit  that  war 
is  not  an  unmixed  blessing.  As  I  read  his- 
tory, war  has  no  good  results  except  when 
there  is  an  overshadowing  principle  at  stake. 
Our  two  wars  with  England  and  the  Civil 
war,  like  the  war  of  the  Reformation,  the 
defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  the  expulsion 
of  the  Saracens  from  Spain,  are  entirely 
different  affairs  from  this  China-Japan  war, 
the  guerilla  fights  in  the  South  Ameri- 
can states,  the  war  of  the  Roses,  or  the 
war  of  the  Spanish  Succession.  There  is  all 
the  difference  between  them  that  there  is 
between  the  man  who  fights  in  defence  of 
life  and  liberty,  and  the  brutes  who  fight 
for  plunder.  The  United  States,  England, 
France,  and  Germany  owe  something  to 
civilization  and  religion,  and  they  should 
interfere  in  this  great  loss  of  life  and  treas- 
ure, and  forcibly  arbitrate  such  childish 
quarrels.     They  are  a  disgrace    to    history. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         31 

We  are  nothing  more  than  spectators  at  a 
prize-fight." 

The  Contributor, —  "Exactly,  spectators, 
referees,  judges,  and  best  of  all,  purse- 
holders.  As  for  me,  I  have  a  gallery  seat 
and  my  eyesight  Is  poor ;  but  the  sound  of 
the  blows  makes  my  old  blood  tingle." 

The  Reader,  —  "It  ought  to  be  a  good 
war,— morally  good, — high-toned  and  civil- 
ized, as  Christian  nations  have  armed  and 
drilled  both  sides,  and  Christian  nations 
hope  to  progress  In  the  art  of  war  by  the 
object  lessons  in  the  efficiency  and  deficiency 
of  our  modern  pneumatic  guns,  smokeless 
powder,  and  naval  coats-of-mail !  " 

The  Contributor,  —  "  The  worst,  the  most 
sanguine,  the  seemingly  most  uncalled-for 
wars  that  ever  disgraced  the  annals  of  his- 
tory, have  In  the  end  proved  a  blessing  to 
mankind.  The  first  French  Revolution,  in 
which  was  shed  enough  innocent  blood  to 
float  the  Oregon^  startled  Europe,  intellect- 
ually as  well  as  politically,  from  the  sepul- 


32  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

chral  repose  of  the  last  century ;  it  shook 
the  old  continent  to  its  centre,  impregnated 
the  entire  social  system  with  new  elements, 
both  of  good  and  evil,  woke  it  up,  and  set 
inquiring  minds  to  work  to  an  extent  before 
unknown.  The  Napoleonic  wars,  unjusti- 
fied and  unprincipled,  overthrew  the  feudal 
system,  tore  down  oligarchy,  the  divine 
right  of  kings,  and  made  republicanism 
possible  in  Europe  —  " 

"  I  confess,"  interrupted  the  Parson,  smil- 
ing blandly,  "  that  like  the  Thessalonians  I 
am  '  shaken  and  troubled  in  mind.*  " 

There  is  no  use  in  trying  to  carry  a  spon- 
taneous conversation  to  a  logical  conclusion. 
The  mere  effort  would  sap  all  the  spon- 
taneity out  of  it  in  a  moment.  There  is  no 
originality  of  brilliancy  in  the  word  "chest- 
nuts ! "  but  it  is  expressive,  even  am.ong 
savants,  and  will  bring  a  haranguer  —  like 
the  Contributor,  for  example  —  off  his 
winged  horse  in  an  instant.     Our  talks  were 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         33 

never  serious  for  more  than  a  moment  at 
a  time ;  not  long  enough  for  any  one  of  us 
to  ride  a  hobby.  We  were  all  too  indifferent 
to  one  another's  opinions.  Had  we  been 
called  together  to  growl  at  and  reform 
politics,  law,  art,  or  literature,  had  we  been 
called  together  at  a  certain  time  and  for  a 
set  purpose,  no  one  would  have  thought  of 
saying  "  chestnuts ! "  or  of  strolling  out  of 
the  room  at  a  most  critical  moment. 

For  one  I  do  not  believe  in  clubs,  —  that 
is,  mutual  improvement  clubs.  Debating 
societies  for  boys  are  a  most  useful  adjunct 
to  a  school,  and  a  vast  benefit  to  the  de- 
baters ;  but  Thursday  or  Friday  or  Satur- 
day evening  clubs  for  the  study  of  Browning 
or  Guy  Fawkes  are,  beyond  the  "  refresh- 
ments "  and  the  social  part,  absurd.  Simply 
because  the  hour  of  8  p.m.  is  set  for  the 
worship  of  Tolstoi  and  his  works,  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  be  in  perfect  unison 
with  the  subject.  At  that  particular  hour  I 
may  feel  more  like  being  at  the  Tivoli,  or 


34  ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

you  may  be  pining  for  an  airing  on  the 
front  of  a  cable  car.  I  do  not  believe  that 
any  great  good  ever  came  of  ten  men  and 
twenty  women  listening  for  an  hour  to 
an  essay  on  the  "  Whichness-of-the-Here," 
when  any  one  of  the  number  could  derive 
twice  the  benefit  from  reading  Emerson  on 
the  same  subject  in  the  quietude  of  his  own 
study,  when  the  spirit  moved  him.  There 
is  no  spontaneity,  no  originality,  no  laugh- 
ter, nothing  but  yawns  and  a  sense  of  duty. 

The  Artist  pulled  down  the  shade,  and  — 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof !  " 


IV 

THE  wish  takes  possession  of  me,  and 
I  step  into  Moore's  old  book-store 
for  a  look  around,  and  a  chat  with  the 
cheery  little  man  who  is  responsible  for  its 
existence.  It  is  just  above  the  sign  of  "  Zum 
Rathskeller,"  up  a  narrow  flight  of  steps, 
almost  impassible  because  of  a  pot-pourri  of 
coverless  books  and  dust-stained  copies  of 
magazines,  —  the  one  I  am  making  now  will 
find  its  way  there,  I  fear, — bargains  at  five 
cents  to  catch  the  eye,  along  with  the  blue 
and  green  Deutschmen  who  are  condemned 
to  forever  quaff  beer  on  the  afore-mentioned 
sign.  There's  something  pathetic  in  the 
array,  for  all  they  so  bravely  flaunt  their 
loveless  old  age  in  the  sun  and  fog  of  Cali- 
fornia Street.  A  dozen  things  occur  to  me 
that  I  might  say,  right  here;  comparisons  I 
35 


36         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

might  draw ;  morals  I  might  point.  But 
what  I  started  to  say  was  something  entirely- 
different. 

Usually  I  hate  to  pick  up  a  copy  of 
a  well-known  author,  and  find  every  pat 
expression  or  happy  thought  marked,  — 
a  covert  insult  to  any  one  who  may  read. 
Half  of  such  markings  have  no  more  indi- 
viduality than  the  Milky  Way.  The  fool 
that  emphasized  the  good  things  in  "  The 
Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table  "  might  as 
well  have  drawn  his  lead  pencil  from  top  to 
bottom  on  every  page  and  from  start  to  fin- 
ish. In  fact,  he  did,  nearly.  I  put  it  down 
to  pure  affectation  on  the  quondam  owner's 
part,  and  make  the  deduction  that  his  taste 
or  weakness  for  books  had  overtaken  him 
in  middle  life,  and  that  he  wished  to  demon- 
strate to  some  one  that  he  knew  a  good  thing 
when  he  saw  it.  I  only  trust  he  suceeeded. 
I  do  not  mean  to  go  on  record  as  a  railer  at 
markers  in  books.  I  remember  turning  the 
pages   of  "  Middlemarch,"    long   after   my 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         37 

father's  death,  and  reading  his  thongnts  at 
the  time  in  a  dozen  faint  pencilHngs  about 
significant  passages  ;  and  it  took  no  Sher- 
lock Holmes  to  detect  the  vocation  of  the 
reader  of  the  copy  of  "  Les  Miserables  "  I 
held  in  my  hand,  in  some  corrections  of 
typographical  errors  in  the  letter-press, — 
w.f 's,  l.c/s,  etc.,  —  on  its  margin. 

Then  possibly  I  am  doubly  charitable, 
as  I  have  a  weakness  of  my  own,  one  I  am 
conscious  of,  —  a  mild  mania  for  original 
editions,  rare  books,  and  curiosities  gener- 
ally in  literature,  —  and  I  am  proud  to  con- 
fess that  I  have  ruined  the  books  of  my 
inherited  library  by  odd  old  volumes  bound 
in  paper  and  parchment,  lucky  if  bound  at 
all.  I  am  sure  sundry  stately  works  in 
vellum  and  calf  must  be  scandalized  in 
being  ranged  by  the  side  of  their  indi- 
gent brethren.  I  never,  however,  attained 
the  proud  distinction  of  actually  owning  a 
Mazarin  Bible,  although  I  secured  original 
editions  of  most  of  the  American  authors. 


38         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

This  is  the  history  of  a  deduction  that  at 
the  time  I  thought  rather  clever.  I  com- 
piled it  while  Mr.  Moore  was  expatiating 
on  the  beauty  of  a  genuine  Angelo  to  a 
young  fencer  who  was  just  learning  the 
difference  between  a  thrust  and  a  parry. 
The  book  I  found  was  a  not  rare  copy 
of  Emerson's  "  Letters  and  Social  Aims/* 
The  name  of  its  once  owner  was  "  John 
Doudet." 

John  Doudet,  I  said,  is  a  compound  of 
two  nationalities.  Doudet  is  French,  John, 
Saxon.  The  father  or  grandfather  was,  not 
unlikely,  the  younger  son  of  some  great 
French  house,  who  fled  to  America,  to  win 
a  fortune  and  then  return.  But  he  met  a 
fair  American,  who  was  dearer  to  him  than 
his  French  blood. 

John  was  their  son,  —  eldest,  perhaps. 
The  young  wife  named  him  "John,"  after 
her  father.  Then  John  was  proud,  —  his 
name  was  on  several  pages  of  the  book,  — 
proud  of  his  French  blood  and  lineage.     He 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctttm  39 

had  been  well  educated,  was  a  thinker,  else 
why  would  he  read  Emerson  so  thoroughly  ? 
He  had  read  it  thoroughly ;  it  was  intelli- 
gently marked  throughout.  He  was  a  man 
of  culture  and  self-control,  always  self-pos- 
sessed, for  on  the  seventy-second  page  he 
had  marked:  — 

"  The  staple  figure  in  novels  is  the  man 
of  aplomb  "  ;  then  he  underlined,  "Napo- 
leon is  the  type  of  this  class  in  modern 
history."  Then  again,  "  Keep  cool  and 
you  command  everybody."  He  was  a  gen- 
tleman in  dress  and  manners.  He  believed 
in  the  outward  signs.  On  page  79  I  saw 
marked,  "  The  sense  of  being  perfectly  well- 
dressed  gives  a  feeling  of  inward  tranquillity 
religion  is  powerless  to  bestow."  Again,  I 
see  he  is  not  rich,  neither  is  he  poor.  He 
philosophizes  in  the  passage,  "  Every  man 
must  seek  to  secure  his  independence,  but 
need  not  be  rich."  Possibly  this  is  the  rea- 
son he  did  not  return  to  France  and  claim 
his  ancestral  rights ;  his  pride  held  back. 


40         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

He  is  something  of  a  cynic,  I  discover, 
by  the  underlining  of:  "  In  a  large  sense, 
one  would  say  there  is  no  originality.  All 
minds  quote."  Then  again,  under  the  sen- 
tence, "  Take  as  a  type  the  boundless  free- 
dom here  in  Massachusetts,"  he  has  written 
in  a  small,  elegant  chirography  :  "  See  the 
history  of  witchcraft  in  this  same  Massa- 
chusetts." 

He  is  neither  a  braggart  nor  a  fop,  I  con- 
clude, from  the  marked  passage  in  the  essay 
on  Greatness,  "  A  sensible  man  does  not 
brag,  avoids  introducing  the  names  of  his 
creditable  companions,  omits  himself  as 
habitually  as  another  man  obtrudes  himself 
in  the  discourse,  and  is  content  with  putting 
fact  or  theme  simply  on  its  ground."  I  liked 
him  all  the  better  for  this.  I  began  to  feel 
that  I  knew  him.  In  my  mind's  eye  I  had 
reconstructed  his  character  as  satisfactorily  as 
you  might  reconstruct  a  mastodon  from  one 
of  its  hairs.  His  physical  make-up  I  will 
not  try  to  lay  down,  but  I   should  like  to 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         41 

know  whether  John  Doudet  ever  returned 
to  the  home  of  his  fathers  and  claimed  his 
ancestral  halls.  I  did  not  buy  the  book. 
You  can  find  it  any  day  on  the  third  shelf 
to  the  left,  as  you  go  in.  There  are  so  many 
books  in  this  world  that  one  must  think 
twice  before  he  buys  an  extra  one,  especially 
one  who  has  to  read  and  review  five,  ten, 
fifteen,  even  twenty  new  ones  a  month. 

This  reviewing  a  new  book  is  a  curious 
thing. 

I  suppose  we  review  books  because  we 
imagine  that  our  readers  enjoy  reading  our 
opinions  of  them ;  and  yet  I  do  not  believe 
any  one  is  ever  guided  in  their  choice  of 
reading  matter  by  the  reviews  that  we  so 
carefully,  and  ofttimes  so  laboriously,  write 
down.  I  know  I  never  read  a  review  of  a 
new  novel  until  after  I  have  read  the  novel, 
and  made  up  my  mind  as  to  its  merits  and 
demerits.  It  is  then  interesting  to  compare 
opinions,  or  discover  side  lights  on  dark  pas- 
sages that  I  did  not  think  worth  exploring. 


42  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

When  "  Trilby  "  came  out,  I  realized  by 
the  number  of  reviews  that  filled  all  manner 
and  degrees  of  journals,  that  it  was  a  book 
far  above  the  average  ;  but  I  did  not  seri- 
ously read  one  of  them  until  after  I  had 
read  the  book  and  indited  my  own  review. 
It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note,  when  you  pause 
to  consider  it,  that  a  reviewer  never  thinks 
it  worth  while  to  call  particular  attention 
to  a  new  novel  until  after  it  has  actually 
appeared  between  covers. 

"  Trilby "  first  saw  the  light  in  a  New 
York  magazine.  If  I  remember  correctly, 
there  was  an  interval  between  its  close  as  a 
serial  and  its  reappearance  as  a  bona  fide  book. 
I  will  venture  the  assertion  that  the  propor- 
tion of  reviews  of  it  in  its  first  and  last  form 
were  as  one  to  one  hundred.  No,  the  truth 
of  the  matter  is  that  we  feel  we  must  review  a 
book  that  is  sent  us,  simply  because  it  is  sent 
us.  There  are  books  whose  very  publishers 
realize  they  are  hardly  worth  a  serious  read- 
ing, and  who,  in  order  to  obtain  the  dignity 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  43 

of  a  review,  send  ready-made  reviews  wiih 
the  request  that  they  be  copied. 

Such  books  should  never  be  published. 
I  do  not  recollect  ever  finding  a  ready-made 
review  that  was  condemnatory,  neither  do  I 
recollect  ever  finding  a  ready-made  review  in 
a  high-class  book. 

The  Contributor,  — "  Now  that  the  election 
is  over  and  the  tariff  bugbear  disposed  of, 
I  want  to  know  if  this  country  is  going  to 
have  time,  between  now  and  next  election, 
to  straighten  out  our  disgraceful  foreign 
relations  ? " 

The  Parson.  — "  Do  you  refer  to  the 
wholesale  massacre  of  the  Armenians  ?  If 
so,  I  trust  our  government  will  make  His 
Turkish  Majesty  understand  that  this  coun- 
try protects  her  subjects  and  upholds  her 
treaties  as  jealously  in  the  heart  of  Armenia 
as  in  the  streets  of  Constantinople." 

The  Contributor.  —  "  That  is  all  very  well 
for  the  text  of  a  missionary  sermon,  but  how 
can  we  even  expect  our  flag  to  be  respected 


44  ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  when  our  child- 
ish internal  bickerings  cause  us  to  neglect 
the  enforcement  of  our  rights  and  self- 
assumed  prerogatives  in  the  Western  ? " 
The  Reader.  —  "  The  Monroe  Doctrine  ?  " 
The  Contributor,  —  "The  same.  Is  it 
innocuous  or  not  ?  It  holds  that  the  United 
States  cannot  tolerate  European  encroach- 
ment upon  the  soil  of  the  American  Re- 
publics.    It  —  " 

Here  the  Office  Boy  entered  with  the  East- 
ern mail.  There  were  a  dozen  postal  cards, 
asking  for  sample  copies,  and  holding  out  the 
never-to-be  realized  insinuation  that,  "  If 
the  magazine  pleases  me,  I  may  decide  to 
take  it."  We  advertise  to  furnish  "  sample 
copies "  for  ten  cents.  They  cost  fifteen 
cents  each,  but  the  loss  is  not  great.  Where 
one  encloses  ten  cents,  twenty -five  remit  their 
autograph  on  a  postal.  Along  about  Christ- 
mas the  number  of  literary  beggars  trebles, 
and  the  strange  thing  about  this  sponging 
system    is,   the    Manager    informs    us,    that 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         45 

Georgia  and  Arkansas  are  the  banner  States 
in  the  sample  copy  campaign,  and  tail  the 
list  on  the  subscription  books. 

Sample  copies  don't  pay.  The  Manager, 
who  has  been  a  miner  on  the  coast  when 
mines  paid,  can  prove  his  axiom.  He  once 
wrote  a  mining  story  from  his  own  life.  It 
was  called  "  The  Temblor  in  the  Mad  Mule 
Mine."  He  had  an  eye  to  business,  and 
openly  boasted  that  it  would  sell  five  thou- 
sand copies  in  Shasta  County  alone.  To  let 
his  old  pards  of  the  "  Mad  Mule  Mine " 
know  that  the  account  of  the  famous  tem- 
blor had  been  made  historic,  he  mailed  a 
sample  copy  to  a  leading  citizen  of  Shasta. 
A  year  went  by  and  the  extra  iv7^  thousand 
copies  were  still  unordered.  One  day  the 
Manager  met  the  recipient  of  the  "  Sample 
Copy  "  on  Mission  Street.  "  Fred,"  shouted 
the  old  man,  "  you  did  us  proud.  Do  you 
know  that  air  story  of  the '  tremelor '  travelled 
all  over  three  counties,  and  when  it  got  back 
it  was  worn  down  to  seven  sheets.     That's 


46  As  Talked  ht  the  Sanctum 

the  kind  of  literature  that  makes  magazines 
rich.  Keep  it  up,  old  Pard,  keep  it  up." 
And  the  Manager  acknowledged  the  subtle 
flattery  as  became  a  successful  author.  They 
drank  to  the  temblor,  to  the  magazine,  to 
Bret  Harte,  and  to  the  five  thousand  copies 
that  were  patiently  awaiting  the  realization 
of  the  Manager's  fond  dream. 

The  Contributor  switched  off  again  on 
one  of  his  favorite  themes  as  I  extracted  a 
big,  fat,  healthy  poem  on  "  The  Golden 
Gate  at  Sunset"  from  a  rather  deUcate  and 
careworn  envelope. 

"  Seventy  years  ago,"  he  began,  "  when 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  first  became  the  boast 
of  the  Republic — " 

But  again  the  Sanctum  door  swung  open. 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof!  " 


I  WENT  to  hear  the  Parson  last  Sun- 
day. His  sermon  was  good.  By  that 
I  mean  that  it  was  entertaining.  He  gave 
me  some  fresh  ideas,  ideas  that  never  origi- 
nated in  the  Sanctum,  and  made  me  remem- 
ber that  I  had  a  higher  duty  to  perform  for 
my  fellow-men  than  to  edit  a  magazine. 

I  believe  it  does  one  good  to  go  to  church, 
even  if  your  mind  does  wander  at  times 
during  the  sermon  —  no  matter  how  excel- 
lent it  is.  My  grandfather  was  an  earnest 
Christian  and  never,  to  my  knowledge, 
missed  a  service  on  Sunday ;  and  yet  one 
of  my  earliest  recollections  is  the  row  of 
spots  along  the  wall  of  the  simple  edifice 
in  which  he  worshipped  for  seventy  years, 
where  his  head,  and  the  heads  of  his  dear 
old  neighbors,  rested  peacefully  in  slumber 

47 


48  As  Talked  in  the  Sancttim 

during  the  two  hours  exposition  of  the  text, 
"  Hell  from  beneath  is  moved  for  thee  to 
meet  thee  at  thy  coming "  (Isaiah  xiv,  9). 
I  do  not  think  hell  from  beneath  was  moved 
to  meet  him  simply  because  he  slept.  He 
slept  reverently ;  for  he  had  become  wearied 
in  doing  good  all  the  week. 

I  am  sure  I  might  better  have  been 
asleep  during  the  Parson's  discourse,  than 
to  have  had  my  mind  slipping  away  on  all 
imaginable  errands  —  sacred  and  profane. 
Some  passage  strikingly  beautiful  would 
rivet  my  attention  for  a  moment,  and  then, 
before  I  knew  it,  I  would  recollect  that  I 
was  carrying  a  letter  in  my  very  inside 
pocket  that  I  had  promised  the  Mistress  to 
mail  the  day  before.  The  thought  would 
carry  me  to  the  letter's  destination,  and  for 
ten  minutes  I  would  take  part  in  a  spirited 
conversation  with  the  little  family  circle  in 
the  New  England  town  where  my  grand- 
father slumbered  through  so  many  Sunday 
sermons.     Then  the   scenery  of  a    Sunday 


As  Talked  hi  the  Sanctum         49 

morning  would  all  come  back  to  me,  and 
the  Parson,  the  stained  glass  tombstone, 
the  groined  arches,  would  fade  away. 

We  used  always  to  lie  abed  at  grand- 
father's on  Sunday  morning.  On  week- 
days, we  usually  arose  at  six,  and  how  good 
that  extra  Sunday  hour  in  bed  seemed.  The 
memory  of  it  now  is  so  filled  with  a  sense 
of  luxuriousness  that  it  seems  almost  sinful. 
Grandmother  never  failed  to  shake  her  head 
gravely,  with  a  look  in  her  eyes  that  half 
reproved  and  wholly  forgave  our  childish 
indulgence,  and  she  never  failed  to  say,  as 
the  last  tousled  head  appeared  from  the 
twisting  oak  stairway,  "  Yet  a  little  sleep, 
a  little  slumber,  a  little  folding  of  the  hands 
to  sleep ; "  but  it  was  said  so  sweetly  that 
it  left  no  sting,  and  was  almost  an  invitation 
to  return  to  the  great  downy  bed  upstairs. 
But  just  as  I  had  entered  upon  a  Sunday 
morning  way  back  in  my  earliest  '-.hildhood, 
I  heard  the  Parson  say,  as  though  in  com- 
mentary   upon   my    very    thoughts,    "The 


50  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light,  that 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day,"  and  I  congratulated  myself  that  even  if 
my  thoughts  had  strayed  from  the  text,  they 
were  following  in  "the  path  of  the  just." 

Grandfather  shaved  himself  carefully  every 
Sunday  morning.  It  was  a  momentous  un- 
dertaking, and  we  would  watch  him  strop 
his  razor  on  the  leather-bound  family  Bible, 
with  an  interest  that  bordered  on  awe. 

The  Contributor,  —  "It  is  something  to 
be  able  to  boast  of  a  grandfather  who  owned 
a  family  Bible.  There  is  no  disputing  that 
grandfathers,  family  Bibles,  and  blue  blood, 
hunt  in  trios." 

While  grandfather  was  shaving,  we  tip- 
toed about  the  room  as  though  his  life  were 
in  danger,  and  I  verily  believe  it  was.  The 
blue  and  green  kittens  that  forever  played 
with  a  yellow  ball  on  the  face  of  the  great 
clock  above  the  brick  fireplace  seemed  to 
open  their  solferino  eyes  as  grandfather  lost 
his  identity  in  a  vast  Niagara  of  lather. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  51 

The  Parson,  —  "I  do  not  resent  the  day- 
dreams of  my  parishioners,  if  they  are  as 
innocent  as  the  last  speaker's.  I  am  not 
conceited,  and  I  do  not  hope  to  hold  each 
and  every  one's  mind  in  my  grasp  as  I  ser- 
monize. If  I  can  turn  their  thoughts  into 
a  pleasant  channel,  away  from  business  and 
dress,  for  thirty  minutes  once  a  week,  I  am 
content.  Every  man  has  an  inner  conscious- 
ness, in  which  is  stored  a  vast  melange  of 
things  —  bits  of  sunshine,  snatches  of  song, 
forgotten  smiles,  half-remembered  kind- 
nesses, childhood  recollections,  and  baby- 
ish sweets  that  he  is  ashamed  to  summon 
up  in  the  glare  of  the  sun  and  the  flare  of 
a  work-a-day  life.  For  six  days  you  are 
hammered  and  knocked  by  the  world  and 
yourself;  on  the  seventh,  I  want  you  to 
open  your  soul  and  let  its  hidden  incense 
and  honey  out.  The  Editor  may  return  to 
the  Sundays  of  his  childhood  and  the  ^  golden 
texts '  of  his  first  Sunday-school ;  the  Con- 
tributor  to   a   sweetheart   in  the  long  ago. 


52         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

and  a  first  kiss  that  has  kept  his  lips  pure 
ever  since.  You  see  I  don't  expect  a  gieat 
deal.  I  preach  for  myself  as  much  as  for 
you.  If  I  can  start  the  divine  milk  of 
human  kindness,  or  cause  an  inward  tear  to 
flow,  my  sermon  is  more  than  a  success. 
*  For  he  on  honey-dew  hath  fed,  and  drunk 
the  milk  of  Paradise.'  " 

The  Artist,  —  "  Bravo  !  Had  the  Parson 
preached  like  this,  the  Editor's  mind  would 
not  have  wandered." 

The  Parson,  —  "  One  of  my  first  sermons 
was  delivered  in  the  pulpit  of  an  eminent 
divine.  As  the  congregation  filed  in  and 
saw  a  stripling  in  the  place  of  the  great  man 
they  had  learned  to  reverence,  they  tiptoed 
out  again  one  after  another.  In  my  right- 
eous wrath  I  rose  and  announced  that  there 
would  be  an  intermission  of  five  minutes, 
during  which  all  those  who  had  come  to 
worship  Doctor  Chapin  might  withdraw, 
after  which  all  those  who  had  come  to  wor- 
ship the  Lord  would  unite  with  me  in  sing- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  53 

ing  the  twenty -third  hymn.  I  thought  the 
retort  very  smart  at  the  time ;  but  I  have 
since  learned  that,  perchance,  I  was  a  wasp  in 
the  ears  of  the  good  old  Christians,  and  that 
my  buzzing  kept  them  from  their  Sunday 
meditation.  It  is  the  old  familiar  face  and 
voice  in  the  pulpit  that  bring  out  the  best 
in  the  listener,  not  the  gymnastics  of  the 
actor  or  the  eloquence  of  the  revivalist.  If 
I  suggest  a  train  of  thought  that  makes  you 
better,  it  is  as  much  as  Demosthenes  or 
Cicero  ever  accomplished.  '  Wisdom  is  the 
principal  thing ;  therefore  get  wisdom ;  and 
with  all  thy  getting  get  understanding.'  " 

There  is  an  atmosphere  about  some 
churches  that  is  filled  with  reverence.  Oft- 
times  it  is  owing  to  the  preacher,  sometimes 
to  the  architecture,  but  more  often,  I  think, 
it  is  because  of  associations.  If  for  forty 
years  or  five  hundred  years  a  church  has 
been  blessed  with  a  congregation  that  fills 
its  spaces  for  but  one  purpose,  —  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Creator,  —  I  believe  it  builds  up 


54         ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

an  atmosphere  that  fairly  throbs  with  their 
prayers ;  the  air  is  magnetic,  charged  with 
so  subtle  a  current  that  the  stranger  feels  it 
without  understanding. 

The  cathedral  at  Cologne  gave  me  that 
impression,  while  Westminster  Abbey  did 
not.  Notre  Dame  was  so  saturated  with 
history  and  romance  that  I  forgot  that  I  was 
in  a  church,  while  the  half-ruined  Mosque 
of  Hassan,  at  Cairo,  impressed  me,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  it  was  raised  to  the  glory  of 
a  false  Prophet,  as  a  home  of  God.  I  am 
not  half  as  reverent  in  the  Parson's  big 
church,  with  its  costly  windows  and  great 
organ,  as  in  the  small  pine  church  of  my 
grandfather.  The  Parson's  steeple  is  two 
hundred  or  three  hundred  feet  high  and 
holds  a  chime  of  bells,  but  the  smoke  from 
the  city  hides  the  steeple,  and  the  clang  of 
the  cable  cars  drowns  the  music  of  the 
chimes. 

As  grandfather  finished  shaving,  and  while 
grandmother  was  arranging  his  stock  for  the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  55 

fifth  time,  the  long  sweet  note  from  the  bell 
in  the  seventy-foot  steeple  three  miles  away 
came  sounding  through  the  soft,  pulseless 
air.  It  was  the  "  first  bell,"  —  ten  o'clock. 
The  scent  of  the  hay  and  of  growing  things 
came  into  the  half-open  window.  The  air 
was  sleepily  warm,  and  so  still  that  the 
urchins  on  the  back  seats  could  hear  every 
fretful  movement  of  the  staid  old  horses  in 
the  long  row  of  sheds  that  bounded  the 
small  churchyard  on  one  side.  The  pulpit 
was  five  steps  above  the  congregation,  far 
enough  to  transform  the  white-haired  old 
preacher,  who  was  our  companion  and  ad- 
viser on  weeks  days,  into  a  priest  and  a 
master.  We  were  in  God's  house ;  we  felt 
it,  and  whether  the  discourse  was  on  heaven 
or  hell,  it  was  accepted  with  a  cheerful 
thankfulness  and  a  reverence  befitting  the 
place. 

There  is  something  in  reverence  that,  with 
a  little  fanning,  bursts  into  blind  obedience 
and  unreasoning  patriotism.     In  the  solemn 


56         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

hush  that  preceded  the  benediction,  when 
every  head  was  bowed,  every  heart  throbbing 
in  unison,  every  mind  filled  with  the  same 
thought,  a  flood  of  reverence,  too  deep  to 
hide,  passed  over  the  congregation,  and  a 
tear  stood  in  more  than  one  eye.  God,  for 
the  moment,  was  very  near. 

The  Contributor,  —  "I  sometimes  think, 
after  all  has  been  said,  that  an  autocratic 
monarchy  is  the  only  really  sensible  govern- 
ment. This  system  of  government  has  its 
drawbacks,  especially  when  the  power  of 
spending  money  and  declaring  war  is  vested 
in  the  hands  of  four  hundred  Congressmen, 
every  one  of  whom  has  a  different  mind  and 
is  responsible  to  his  constituents.  A  king, 
if  he  were  not  an  imbecile,  and  imbeciles  on 
the  thrones  of  the  world  are  not  good  form 
in  this  century,  would  see  at  a  glance  that 
the  building  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal  was  a 
matter  of  vital  importance  to  the  commerce 
of  the  United  States,  and  he  would  order  it 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         57 

built.  But  the  project  was  smothered  in  the 
last  Congress,  because  one  member  thought 
the  money  could  be  better  spent  in  river 
improvements  on  Willow  Creek  —  his  dis- 
trict. And  another  thought  that  Shoreditch 
had  got  to  the  point  where  the  government 
must  build  it  a  new  post-office,  if  it  expected 
his  vote  on  any  bills  that  were  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  great  body  politic.  So-called  high- 
toned  '  independent  *  newspapers  egg  on 
Congressmen  to  oppose  the  building  of  bat- 
tle-ships, because  it  is  a  decade  of  peace,  and 
no  doubt,  because  Wall  Street  needs  the 
money.  If  a  foreign  war-ship  should  sail 
into  New  York  harbor  and  drop  a  bomb 
into  the  midst  of  the  big  cylinder  press  that 
prints  one  such  newspaper,  I  think,  if  able 
to  ever  get  out  another  issue,  it  would  see 
the  need  of  more  war-ships.  This  country  is 
rich,  in  spite  of  its  everlasting  talk  about  lack 
of  funds  and  treasury  deficit.  We  pay  our 
President,  cabinet  ministers,  diplomats,  mere 
pittances  compared  to  fourth-  and  fifth-class 


58  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

European  powers.  We  have  no  court  to 
support  nor  any  royal  loafers ;  we  do  not  even 
pay  our  just  claims, — adjudged  to  be  just  by 
the  Court  of  Claims,  —  then  why  should  we 
not  use  public  moneys  for  public  needs  ? 

"  Since  when  has  the  world  become  so 
good  that  war-ships  and  armies  have  become 
unnecessary?  It  is  exasperating  to  elect  a 
good,  sensible  neighbor  to  go  to  Washington, 
only  to  have  him  spend  his  time  building 
up  and  tumbling  down  tariffs,  wasting  wind 
on  bond  issues,  and  haggling  over  contested 
election  cases." 

The  Reader,  —  '' ! !  " 

The  Contributor,  —  "  There  !  don't  inter- 
rupt me.  The  '  Cuckoo  Congress  '  is  dead, 
and  I,  as  an  American  citizen,  intend  to  have 
my  say.  It  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  me 
what  its  politics  was.  It  is  what  it  did  and 
what  it  promised  to  do  and  what  it  didn't  do 
that  interests  me.  Where  is  the  free  trade 
tariff  it  promised?  How  n^any  of  the  trusts 
that  it  swore  to  suppress  have  felt  its  blight- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  59 

ing  breath?  What  has  become  of  the  boasted 
repeal  of  the  prohibitory  tax  on  State  bank- 
notes? Has  it  irrigated  the  arid  lands,  or 
built  the  Nicaragua  Canal,  or  laid  a  cable  to 
Hawaii  ? " 

The  Contributor's  impassioned  note 
brought  the  Office  Boy  to  the  door  with 
a  look  of  genuine  alarm  on  his  face.  "  But 
they  are  gone,  the  cuckoos,  thank  God !  " 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Yes,  sir,  they  sailed  for 
Australia  on  the  Mariposa,  Thursday/' 

The  Contributor.  —  "  They  what  ?  Whom 
do  you  mean  ?  " 

The  Office  5^>  —  "Why!  the  'Gaiety 
Girls,'  sir." 

Then  the  good  Contributor  blushed  to 
the  top  of  his  dear  old  head.  The  Con- 
tributor, who  never  went  to  the  theatre 
unless  Shakspere  was  before  the  footlights, 
had  gone  three  nights  to  see  the  "  Gaiety 
Girls "  at  the  Baldwin,  and  mere  curiosity, 
no  doubt,  had  taken  him  to  the  Oceanic 
dock  to  see  them  sail  out  of  the  ever  mys- 


6o        ^As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

terious  portals  of  the  Golden  Gate.  The 
Artist  laughed  softly,  and  the  Editor  went 
out  into  the  adjoining  room  to  listen  to  the 
story  of  a  "  poetess  of  passion,"  who  brought 
a  letter  of  introduction  from  Joaquin  Miller. 

But  when  he  returned  to  the  Sanctum  — 

The  Office  Boy.  —  "  Proof!  " 


VI 

"  T  AM  sixty-four  to-day,  boys,"  said  the 
A  Parson.  Then  he  so  drew  himself  up 
that  there  was  but  the  faintest  suspicion  of 
a  stoop  in  his  broad  shoulders  and  awaited 
our  congratulations.  The  crown  of  his  hat 
just  cleared  the  lintel  of  the  Sanctum  door. 
Strength  and  bodily  confidence  pervaded 
his  person,  and  the  flush  of  health  and 
exercise  glowed  in  his  clean-shaven  face. 
His  hair  was  white,  but  his  eye  was  as 
bright  and  alert  as  a  schoolboy's.  Not 
until  he  gave  the  military  salute  did  we 
recollect  the  ugly  sabre  cut  concealed  be- 
neath his  immaculate  shirt-bosom.  We 
always  referred  to  it  as  the  Sanctum's 
"V.  C."  The  Parson,  however,  was 
prouder  of  the  fact  that  his  four  years  at 
the  front  had,  in    his   own   estimation,  left 

6i 


62  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

no  cause  for  him  to  call  for  a  pension,  than 
that  he  had  brought  this  glory  to  the  Sanc- 
tum. There  was  a  grain  of  vanity  in  the 
good  man's  consciousness  of  perfect  health 
and  unimpaired  vitality  that  we  were  secretly 
proud  ofj  although  the  Contributor  never 
failed  to  remark  solicitously,  on  occasion : 
"  I  wish  you  could  have  seen  the  Parson 
in  such  and  such  a  year.  Healthy !  you 
wouldn't  know  he  was  the  same  man." 

Then  we  would  all  look  sympathetically 
toward  the  "  invalid "  and  mourn  that  we 
could  not  have  known  him  in  his  prime. 

The  Parson  was  a  sturdy  shepherd,  both 
mentally  and  physically,  and  had  it  ever 
come  to  the  point  of  holding  his  aristo- 
cratic flock  together  by  sheer  force  of 
muscle,  he  would  have  been  equal  to  the 
trial.  It  would  have  been  a  strong  sheep 
indeed  that  could  twist  itself  out  of  his 
powerful  hands. 

The  Parson  believes  that  no  man  is  so 
busy  or  driven    that    he    cannot   afibrd    an 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  63 

hour  a  day  to  physical  drill ;  that  much  time 
given  to  Indian  clubs,  dumb-bells,  or  to  his 
own  hobby  —  fencing  —  is,  he  declares,  in- 
vested at  compound  interest.  It  had  not 
taken  him  long  to  convert  the  Sanctum  and 
turn  it  into  a  fencing  class ;  but  upon  the 
outside  world,  even  those  of  his  own  flock, 
he  had  not  made  the  least  impression.  I 
have  heard  him  preach  and  lecture  again 
and  again  on  the  Gospel  of  Exercise,  only 
to  have  his  pleased  audience  agree  with  him 
from  first  to  last,  without  a  thought  of  even 
giving  his  method  a  trial.  We  had  only 
to  mention  that  the  Parson  was  looking 
well  to  start  him  off  on  this  well-built 
hobby. 

The  Parson, — "  Looking  well,  am  I  ?  I 
am  sixty-four  to-day,  remember,  and  I  sleep 
and  eat  like  a  baby.  I  can  chase  a  street 
car  two  blocks  without  losing  my  breath, 
and  tramp  from  here  to  Menlo  and  back 
without  an  effort;  or  I  can  work  in  my 
study,  if  necessary,  from  six  in  the  morning 


64         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

until  twelve  at  night,  and  not  feel  it.  Do 
you  know  why  ?  Because  I  devote  one 
hour  of  every  day  of  my  life,  save  Sunday, 
to  good  hard  exercise.  I  bring  every 
muscle  of  my  body  and  brain  into  action 
and,  for  the  time  being,  I  forget  my  trials, 
my  business,  my  work,  in  a  grand  salle 
(Tarmes.  During  that  hour  I  had  rather 
touche  Professor  Ansot  than  pen  the  best 
sermon  ever  written.  Or,  if  it  is  a  lesson 
instead  of  a  bout,  I  am  prouder  of  my  self- 
control  as  I  stand  before  the  dancing  point 
of  his  foil  than  I  am  of  the  biggest  marriage 
fee  that  I  ever  received.  And  then  to  stop 
before  you  are  tired,  dripping  with  perspira- 
tion, the  blood  bounding  through  your 
body,  your  muscles  all  quivering  with  excite- 
ment, and  go  out  into  the  street  with  head 
up  and  shoulders  thrown  back,  ah !  it  is 
glorious.  Tell  me,  cannot  you  do  better 
work  in  the  office  or  in  the  study  after 
that  ?  Look  around  among  our  friends : 
hollow  chests  and  stooping  shoulders  greet 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         65 

you  everywhere.  In  the  spring,  this  one 
must  have  a  tonic;  in  the  fall,  that  one 
must  go  to  the  country  for  rest.  The  one 
spends  more  money  for  medicine  than  I 
do  for  fencing  lessons,  and  the  other  more 
time  in  his  one  trip  than  I  do  with  my 
hour  a  day  the  year  round.  What  is  the 
result  on  their  part  ?  Nothing.  Why, 
four  years  ago  the  Editor  had  the  grip ;  he 
took  a  sea  voyage  and  a  hogshead  of 
medicine.  The  grip  went  away  for  that 
summer,  but  returned  the  next  winter. 
You  all  said  he  was  going  into  a  decline. 
I  am  not  preaching,  but  you  know  the 
result.  I  got  him  down  to  Ansot's  and 
started  him  in  fencing,  an  hour  a  day.  The 
grip  fled.  Look  at  him  now!  He  can 
do  two  men's  work.  His  two  years' 
fencing  has  made  a  man  of  him,  although 
I  confess  he  hasn't  become  much  of  a 
fencer." 

I  bowed,  and  threw  my  gloves  at  the  rev- 
erend man's  patent  leathers. 


OF  TKJB 

XTNIVEHSITY 


66         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

The  Parson,  —  "This  generation  is  brought 
up  wrong.  No  attention  is  paid  to  health. 
It  has  flaccid  muscles  and  weak  lungs.  The 
American  father  imagines  that  the  Indian 
club  belongs  to  the  specialty  man  on  the 
variety  stage  and  the  fencing  foil  to  the 
pages  of  Dumas's  novels.  Consequently 
the  American  boy  is  sent  to  school  to 
develop  his  brain  and  abuse  his  body.  He 
studies  trigonometry  for  discipline  without 
knowing  that  there  is  more  discipline  in  a 
parry  and  three  times  as  much  mathematics 
in  a  touche.  The  English  know  better. 
They  walk  and  ride  and  exercise  conscien- 
tiously, and  they  do  not  have  the  dyspepsia 
or  insomnia.  When  I  advise  a  business 
friend  to  take  an  hour  a  day  for  exercise,  he 
replies,  *  I  wish  I  could,  but  I  haven't  time.' 
Hasn't  time !  Mark  my  word,  that  man 
will  be  old  at  forty,  wear  out  at  fifty,  and  die 
at  fifty-five.  The  ten  or  fifteen  years  that 
he  will  spend  in  his  grave  before  I  shall  join 
him  would  have  been  plenty  of  time.     Look 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanchim  67 

at  the  patent  medicines  in  our  stores.     What 

country  on  earth  has  so  many  ?     Of  them 

all,   which    ones    have   we    inherited    from 

Greece  or  Rome  or  even  France  ?     Do  you 

think  that  there  would  be  any  sale  for  these 

concoctions   of  iron   and   cod-liver  oil   if  it 

were   fashionable    for  our  young  ladies  and 

gentlemen  to  walk  and  ride  and  fence  ?     Bah  ! 

Not  one  per  cent    of  them    have  strength 

enough  to  pick  themselves  up  if  they  fall 

dQwn,  and  none  of  them  know  the  pleasure 

of  being  able  to  enjoy  the  good  things  of  the 

world." 

The  Reader,  — "  Not  even  the    Parson's 

sermons.'' 

The  Parson.  —  "  Why,  when  I  was  abroad 
>» 

The  Office  Boy.  —  "There  is  a  lady  out- 
side who  wishes  to  know  if  you  can  use  a 
poem  on  the  California  Poppy  ? " 

The  Reader,  —  "Tell  the  lady  that  the 
demand  for  poems  on  the  California  Poppy 
and  Mount  Shasta  is  weak  to-day.     We  are 


68  As  Talked  hi  the  Sanctum 

running  the  Yosemite  and  the  Golden  Gate 
for  a  change." 

The  Parson,  — "  You  may  smile  at  my 
five  weeks  abroad,  but  it  was  a  vigorous  trip. 
I  started  with  a  party  of  thirty  and  by  the 
time  we  arrived  at  the  base  of  the  Pyramids 
there  were  only  nine  left.  We  had  tired  out 
the  weaklings.  My  physical  training  stood 
me  in  good  stead.  Three  of  the  nine 
attempted  the  Great  Pyramid,  but  only  two  of 
us  succeeded.  Do  you  not  think  that  I  was 
paid  for  my  hour  every  morning  by  the 
view  I  got  at  its  top  and  the  proud  conscious- 
ness I  had  won  where  so  many  others  had 
failed  ?  There  are  many  men,  —  yes,  and 
women,  —  who  claim  that  they  have  scaled 
the  Great  Pyramid  of  Cheops.  Collectively, 
I  admire  them,  particularly  the  women ; 
individually,  all  but  the  athletes  like  myself 
must  pardon  me  if  I  am  politely  sceptical. 
The  ledges  that  I  walked  along  between  my 
Bedouins,  the  blocks  of  granite  the  height  of 
man  that  I  was  dragged  up  over,  and  the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  69 

corners  and  crevices  I  edged  into,  would  put 
the  walls  of  one  of  our  canons  to  shame. 
But  the  reward !  I  had  waited  until  I  was 
sixty,  but  it  was  mine  at  last.  The  Pyra- 
mids ;  the  Sphinx,  *  staring  right  on,  with 
calm  eternal  eye ' ;  Heliopolis,  the  city  of  the 
sun,  —  the  On  of  Genesis;  Cairo  with  its 
thousand  domes  and  minarets ;  the  sacred 
Nile ;  the  red  desert  of  Libya,  where  there 
is  no  shade  save  what  the  chameleon  casts ; 
the  tombs  of  the  Mamelukes ;  the  Island  of 
Roda,  where  the  great  lawgiver  was  found, 
—  lay  stretched  below  me  like  the  panoramic 
map  of  the  Sunday-school  room  of  my  child- 
hood. Away  to  the  right  v/as  Goshen,  the 
land  to  which  the  silver-haired  patriarch 
Jacob  and  his  sons  came ;  farther,  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees,  from  out  of  which  Abraham 
journeyed  in  the  time  of  famine ;  to  the 
south  were  Ghizeh  and  Memphis,  only  a 
mass  of  scattered  ruins  to  tell  of  their  former 
greatness.'* 

The  Artist,  —  "  Very  pretty  !     Accept  my 


70         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

humble  congratulations  and  wishes  for  many 

happy  returns  of  this  day." 

The  Poet.  —  "  And  from  me,  — 

*  A  green  old  age,  unconscious  c^  decays 
That  proves  the  hero  born  in  better  days.*  ** 

The  Occasional  Visitor.  —  "I  shall  take  up 
fencing  at  once,  if  it  will  enable  me  to  ascend 
the  Great-  Pyramid  when  I  am  sixty,  and  have 
breath  enough  left  to  see  anything  but  a 
dizzy  whirl  before  my  eyes." 

Then  we  fell  to  talking  about  fencing  as 
an  art,  not  strictly  as  a  means  of  exercise. 
It  is  rather  a  remarkable  thing  that  the  theory 
of  fencing  has  reached  all  but  absolute  per- 
fection at  this  day,  when  the  art  has  become 
practically  useless.  Had  D' Artagnan  known 
how  to  use  his  rapier  as  do  Ansot  of  San 
Francisco  or  Senac  of  New  York,  he  would 
have  had  less  difficulty  with  the  bravos  o\ 
the  court.  In  fact,  Dumas,  Ainsworth,  Sir 
Walter  Scott  and  Stanley  Weyman,  in  order 
that  their  heroes  may  be  victors  on  all  occa- 
sions, make   them  masters  of  the   modern 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  71 

fencing  school,  —  an  anachronism  as  absurd 
as  it  is  foolish  !  The  duel  of  the  days  of 
"  Ivanhoe  "  and  "  The  Three  Musketeers  " 
was  a  question  more  of  brute  strength  and 
agility  than  of  skill  or  science.  The  duel 
with  rapiers  in  the  sixteenth  and  early  seven- 
teenth centuries  was  far  from  the  graceful, 
picturesque  performance  that  authors  and 
artists  would  have  us  believe.  The  charm- 
ing sword-play  that  one  usually  sees  in 
Hamlet  is  innocently  ridiculous.  It  was 
learned  by  the  modern  actor  of  the  fencing 
master  of  his  day,  and  adapted  to  a  play  that 
was  supposed  to  describe  a  Danish  court  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Hamlet  might  as  well  be 
in  full  evening  dress  and  patent-leathers  as 
to  salute  Laertes  with  the  lunge,  reversing  of 
the  point,  saluting  in  carte  and  tierce,  etc. 
Such  fencing  was  not  even  perfected  fifty 
years  ago.  The  principles  which  are  the  A 
B  C  of  sword-play  to-day  were  absolutely 
unknown  in  the  days  of  duelling  and  would 
have  established  the  reputation  of  the  courtier 


72  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

in  the  time  of  Louis  XV.  The  history  of 
the  sword  is  a  history  of  the  evolution  of 
man.  The  rough,  unskilful  fighting  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  has  been  so  wrongfully 
idealized  by  author  and  artist,  was  wholly  in 
keeping  with  the  reign  of  brute  force  in 
social  life  as  well  as  politics.  The  mighty 
arm  and  the  mighty  weapon  went  together, 
although  the  weakling  of  to-day  could  have 
silenced  both.  The  mace  or  glaive  and  armor 
played  an  equal  part  with  the  sword,  and  the 
strongest  won.  With  the  Renaissance  came 
the  wild,  frantic,  and  vicious  reign  of  the 
rapier.  Armor  was  laid  aside  and  the  cava- 
lier strove  to  outwit  his  antagonist  instead  of 
beating  him  down.  There  were  no  parriers 
or  thrusts,  only  a  mad  whirl  and  exhibition 
of  agiUty.  The  sword-play  corresponded  to 
the  manner  and  literature  of  the  time  —  it 
lacked  balance.  With  the  introduction  of 
fire-arms,  the  sword  lost  its  importance  and 
became  an  article  of  dress,  and  its  use  an 
accomplishment  like  dancing.     Not  till  then 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         73 

did  the  swordsman  discover  that  the  sword 
became  really  dangerous  only  when  handled 
with  the  least  expenditure  of  strength  and 
managed  almost  entirely  by  the  wrist.  Duel- 
ling is  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  fencing  is 
simply  a  pastime  that  combines  the  greatest 
amount  of  mental  excitement  with  bodily 
exercise.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  use  of 
the  foil  became  obsolete  when  duelling 
became  a  crime.  It  can  be  made  a  game  of 
skill  that  delights  the  brain  as  well  as  tasks 
the  muscles. 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof!  " 


VII 

^J^HE  CONTRIBUTOR.  — ''  Did  you 
JL  ever  feel  that  you  had  an  inspiration 
to  write  ?  Possibly  not  the  divine  inspira- 
tion of  the  heaven-born  genius  encouraged 
by  a  brain  full  of  great  live  thoughts,  but 
the  lazy,  irritating  itching  to  lay  aside  the 
book  you  are  reading  and  write  —  not  to 
write  anything  in  particular,  but  just  write, 
compose.  Mine  —  for  I  am  a  victim  — gen- 
erally exhausts  itself,  I  admit,  while  I  am 
sharpening  one  end  of  my  pencil  or  chew- 
ing the  other  into  a  brush-like  pulp ;  but 
still  I  am  unable  to  resist  this  sudden, 
delightful  call." 

The  Reader  remarked  that  he  had  heard 
the  still,  small  voice  often,  but  that  it  gen- 
erally reached  him  from  the  composing 
rooms  via  the  Office  Boy. 

74 


As  Talked  in  the  Sam 

The  Contributor,  — "  When  I  was  a  boy 
and  first  heard  an  orchestra,  I  would  sit 
through  number  after  number  with  eyes 
half  closed  and  thoughts  spanning  the  uni- 
verse. I  had  no  idea  what  was  being  played  ; 
the  airs  did  not  particularly  interest  me.  But 
one  would  drive  my  ambitions  in  one  direc- 
tion and  one  in  another.  Sometimes,  with 
the  music,  I  pictured  myself  behind  the 
footlights  —  an  orator — holding  spellbound 
the  audience,  of  which,  so  I  dreamed,  I 
was  one,  moving  them  to  tears  or  laughter 
by  the  power  of  my  eloquence.  Sentences 
of  my  mythical  speech  would  flash  through 
my  brain.  My  breath  would  come  quickly, 
for  as  I  would  finish  this  matchless  oration 
that  was  to  make  my  name  honored  for  all 
time  I  saw  the  audience  rising  as  one  man 
and  cheering  until  the  whole  earth  echoed 
with  the  shouts.  The  orchestra  would  cease 
and  I  would  descend  from  Olympus,  a  little 
sheepish  withal,  but  with  my  pulses  beating 
like   trip-hammers  and   my  eyes   all  aglow. 


76         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Music  fired  a  thousand  latent,  unknown, 
unformulated  ambitions.  They  were  big, 
warm,  and  generous.  I  fairly  ached  to  be 
up  and  doing.  I  could  not  wait  for  the 
years  of  my  adolescence  to  pass.  When  I 
arrived  at  man's  estate  the  horizon  narrowed 
suddenly.  Instead  of  conquering  the  world 
and  moving  multitudes,  I  found  that  there 
were  certain  stubborn  elementary  facts  that 
must  be  dealt  with  before  I  could  ever  make 
my  name  known  and  honored,  even  in  my 
own  city.  Then  music  lost  its  power.  It 
was  of  no  use  to  picture  myself  a  general 
before  I  knew  even  the  ordinary  drill  of  a 
common  soldier ;  or  the  editor  of  a  great 
magazine,  when  my  contributions  were  not 
acceptable  in  the  humblest  newspaper  offices. 
"  I  never  became  an  orator.  Still,  those 
early  air-castles  survived  houses  that  should 
have  been  built  of  firmer  material,  and  drove 
the  dreamer  to  the  conquering  of  tasks  that 
would  have  been  considered  menial  a  few 
years  before.     This  is  what  I  mean  by  my 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  77 

sudden  ambitions  or  inspirations  to  write. 
To-day,  for  example,  I  was  reading  Lafcadio 
Hearn's  charming  studies  and  essays  of 
Japan,  '  Out  of  the  East.'  The  beauty  of 
the  language,  the  delicacy  of  the  descriptions, 
the  almost  breathing  perfume  of  the  scenes, 
moved  me  strangely,  —  not  to  take  the  next 
steamer  for  Japan  and  join  the  author  in  his 
paradise,  for  I  know  too  well  the  folly  of 
anticipation  and  the  disappointment  of  reali- 
zation ;  but  to  imitate,  or  rival,  the  writer 
with  my  pen.  I  wrote  at  my  novel  for  an 
hour.  Hearn  was  the  inspiration,  and  it  is 
to  him  that  I  owe  this  chapter.  I  plagiarized 
his  spirit,  not  his  ideas  or  his  words.  I  think 
he  would  recognize  it.  There  are  other 
authors  that  are  responsible  for  the  atmos- 
phere of  other  paragraphs  and  chapters, — 
Stanley  Weyman,  Ian  Maclaren,  Doyle, — 
and,  myself! 

"  This  is  a  confession  that  I  do  not  wish 
to  go  outside  the  Sanctum,  but  I  have  been 
enthused  by  my  own   published  work.      I 


78  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

have  said  to  myself:  '  That  is  great.  I 
wonder  how  I  ever  came  to  do  it  ?  If  I  can 
improve  on  that  I  shall  be  heard  of  yet.* 
And  then,  all  aglow  with  my  own  greatness, 
I  pitch  in  with  a  stimulus  that  carries  me  on 
for  an  hour  or  more.  There !  has  any  one 
else  ever  felt  the  same, —  felt  this  modest 
yearning  to  soar  ?  '* 

The  Reader,  — "  The  Contributor  must 
have  had  one  of  his  contributions  accepted 
by  some  journal  that  pays  on  acceptance. 
How,  otherwise,  can  we  account  for  his  sub- 
lime appreciation  of  his  own  work  ?  " 

The  Contributor.  —  "  The  Reader  lives  so 
exclusively  in  a  world  of  rejected  manu- 
scripts that  he  is  unable  to  recognize  the 
true  ring  when  he  hears  it.  When  he  finds 
that  it  is  possible  to  accept  he  is  so  thun- 
derstruck that  he  has  to  ride  up  and  down 
in  the  elevator  eight  times  before  he  is  able 
to  pen  a  gracious  note  to  its  author.  He 
has  set  the  refusal  blanks  to  music,  and  sings 
them  to  waltz  time,  something  like  this  :  — 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         79 

Dear  Sir. 

La!  la!  la! 
We  find  ourselves  unable  to  use  the  man- 
uscript submitted,  and  accordingly  return   it 
with  thanks. 

La!  la!  la! 
It   is    impossible,  among  so  many  manu- 
scripts,  to   send  criticism   or   explanation   of 
the  reas9ns  why  each  is  unavailable. 
La!  la!  la! 
Many  are  returned  because  their    subjects 
or  treatment  are  not  just  in  the  line  the  mag- 
azine may  be  in  need  of  at  the  time  ;  or  be- 
cause, among   many  that  are  good,  we  must 
select  a  few  and  return  the  rest. 
La!  la!  la! 
Much  that  is  not  adapted  to  the  use  of  this 
magazine   will    be  found    available  by   other 
journals. 

La!  la!  la!      Tra !  la!  la! 

"  I  have  had  a  story  accepted  and  the 
check  is  in  my  pocket.  Possibly  I  do  feel 
encouraged ;  but  that  is  neither  here  nor 
there.  I  was  simply  asking  a  question. 
Many  a  time  have  I   laid  down  a  book   I 


8o         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

was  reading,  one  that  was  so  interesting  that 
I  could  scarcely  take  my  eyes  from  it,  and, 
driven  by  a  will  stronger  than  my  own, 
snatched  up  a  half-completed  story,  and 
wrote  and  rewrote  for  dear  life.  It  was  the 
same  old  familiar  impulse  that  I  felt  tug- 
ging at  my  heart  strings  as  I  listened  to  one 
of  Verdi's  operas.  Only  then  it  was  not 
tangible  ;  it  had  not  chosen  its  outlet.  It  is 
only  once  in  a  month  or  a  year  that  a  book 
has  this  influence,  and  the  subject-matter  of 
the  book  is  as  varied  as  are  the  things  I  write. 
I  feel  the  thrill  as  I  repeat  their  names,  — 
*  Les  Miserables,*  *  Henry  Esmond,*  '  In 
the  Tennessee  Mountains,'  *  The  Story  of  a 
Country  Town,*  'Norwood,*  *  Doctor  Johns,* 
and  more  than  one  of  Ebers*s,  Harte*s, 
Caine*s,  Weyman*s,  and  Doyle*s.*' 

The  Reader. — "I  gather  from  your 
remarks  that  Hugo,  Thackeray,  Bret 
Harte,  and  the  rest  did  not  live  in 
vain.** 

The  Poet.  —  "  I,  too,  have  felt  the  divine 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  8i 

afflatus  '  within  the  book  and  volume  of  my 
brain.'  " 

The  Reader,  — "  Gentlemen,  please  do  not 
misunderstand  me.  I  am  not  a  scoffer.  I 
also  have  had  the  desire  come  upon  me  to 
write  as  I  read,  but  I  have  stood  out  man- 
fully against  it.     Do  ye  likewise." 

The  Reviewer  took  from  his  vest  pocket 
a  newspaper  clipping  and  read  the  names  of 
a  lot  of  big-wigs  in  the  literary  profession 
and  the  books  that  had  most  helped  them 
to  become  big-wigs.  Big-wig,  I  think,  is  the 
term  for  one  thousand  candle-power  literary 
lights,  rather  than  big  guns.  A  little  friend 
of  the  Sanctum,  whose  father  is  a  member 
of  the  State  Legislature,  has  just  entered 
school.  The  teacher,  one  day,  was  trying 
to  instil  into  the  little  ones'  minds  the  first 
great  lesson  of  all,  —  to  keep  their  bright 
eyes  open,  to  observe.  Then  she  bade 
them  put  their  books  aside  and  suddenly 
asked  how  many  pages  the  book  contained. 
No  one  had  noticed  save  the  Sanctum's  little 


82  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

friend,  and  he  answered  promptly,  "  One 
hundred  and  thirty-four."  Then  she  asked 
who  was  the  author  of  the  "  What-is-this  ? 
This-is-a-cat "  book.  Our  little  man  and 
three  others  out  of  a  class  of  eighteen  replied 
correctly.  I  was  very  proud  of  him.  I  saw 
the  career  of  a  lawyer,  reporter,  or  natu- 
ralist open  up.  Then  came  some  ques- 
tion about  the  great  cannons  that  were  being 
tried,  day  by  day,  at  Presidio.  "  Did  any 
one  in  the  class  ever  see  a  big  gun  ? " 
Up  went  Bennie's  hand.  "  I  saw  hun- 
dreds, teacher,  when  I  went  with  mamma 
to  Sacramento.  And  my  papa  is  one, 
too  ! "  he  finished,  with  a  ring  of  childish 
pride  in  his  voice.  I  saw  the  distinction 
at  once  between  a  "  big-wig  "  and  a  "  big- 
gun." 

Among  the  list  of  books  that  the  afore- 
mentioned authors  honored  by  acknowledg- 
ing, we  found,  once  or  twice,  Shakspere,  the 
Bible,  Homer,  and  Virgil,  while  one  referred 
condescendingly  to  Moliere ;  but  the  majority 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         83 

cited  books  and  writers  that  were  entire 
strangers  to  the  Sanctum :  they  had  impos- 
ing Latin  and  Greek  names  that  commanded 
our  awe  at  once,  although  they  did  not 
awaken  a  ghmmer  of  intelligence  in  our 
several  faces.  I  looked  in  vain  for  some 
mention  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe  "  ;  the  Par- 
son was  convinced  that  it  was  the  fault 
of  the  printer  that  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  '* 
had  been  overlooked,  and  the  Contribu- 
tor said  flatly  that  the  big- wigs  were 
posing. 

The  Contributor.  —  "  To  be  honest,  I  will 
wager  that  Sir  John  Lubbock,  Professor 
Huxley,  or  Mr.  Ruskin,  if  it  came  down 
to  a  question  of  final,  individual  decision, 
would  see  the  entire  forty-two  books  of 
'  Hermes  Trismegistus  '  in  the  same  embar- 
rassing position  as  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and 
Abednego,  rather  than  have  the  world  lose 
'  Vanity  Fair '  or  the  '  Scarlet  Letter.*  I 
have  heard  of  the  '  Y-King.*  I  know  it 
was  written  eleven  centuries  before   Christ 


84  y^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

by  a  Mister  Wang-wang  of  the  Celestial 
Empire.  I  never  read  one  of  its  three 
thousand  songs,  and  I  don't  believe  that  all 
of  them  would  inspire  me  to  write  one  chap- 
ter of  my  novel.  I  may  be  but  an  aver- 
age American,  but  I  don't  believe  that  the 
'  Y-King,'  the  Vedas,  the  *  Zend-Avesta,*  the 
'  Tagenistae  '  of  Aristophanes,  the  '  Lyrics  * 
of  Theognis,  the  Megarian,  the  '  Works  and 
Days '  of  Hesiod,  with  a  half-dozen  authors 
of  the  Augustan  age  thrown  in,  have  done 
one-tenth  as  much  toward  shaping  and  stim- 
ulating the  talents  of  our  revered  big-wigs, 
in  spite  of  their  own  positive  assertions, 
as  the  scantily  noticed  works  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan writers  and  our  modern  novelists. 
You  cannot  take  a  book,  no  matter  how 
erudite,  with  firm  determination  to  be  in- 
spired. Books  are  dependent  on  moods 
and  surroundings.  You  may  read  the  same 
volume  one  day,  through  a  glass  darkly, 
and  the  next,  sympathetically.  However 
much  we  may  owe  to  the  so-called  classics, 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  85 

still  I  think  the  good  books  of  our  youth 
are  the  ones,  possibly  unrecognized  even 
to-day,  that  have  had  the  greatest  influ- 
ence in  shaping  our  thoughts,  and  possi- 
bly our  careers.** 

The  Reviewer  mentioned  his  best-be- 
loved book.  I  do  not  think  it  would  be 
fair  to  chronicle  it  here,  as  it  was  not  a 
classic,  and  the  big-wigs  would  probably 
never  own  up  to  having  read  it.  It  was 
a  sweet,  simple  story  of  boy-and-girl  love 
on  a  tropical  island.  There  was  a  little  de- 
scription in  it,  not  much  of  any  value,  no 
epigrams,  no  foreign  phrases,  no  analysis, 
and  yet  it  had  taken  firm  hold  of  something 
in  the  Reviewer's  life  and  had  never  let  go. 
It  had  taught  him  a  lesson  that  had  made 
him  better  and  purer.  He  did  not  main- 
tain that  his  author  had  any  right  to  a  place 
by  the  side  of  Martial,  Horace,  or  Catullus 
—  neither  would  he  have  loved  him  better 
if  he  had. 

Sometimes  I  am  afraid  to  reread  one  of 


86         ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

these  books  that  have  helped  shape  my  life. 
I  do  not  want  to  discover  their  imperfec- 
tions in  the  light  of  my  larger  experience. 
I  am  jealous  of  their  place  in  my  memory. 
Yet  they  have  never  disappointed  me.  How 
can  they,  when,  between  every  line,  I  read 
the  aspirations  and  ambitions  of  my  own 
fresh  young  mind,  and  at  the  end  of  every 
chapter  behold  a  flashlike  view  of  how  those 
dreams  were  realized.  "  Robinson  Crusoe  '* 
and  "  Swiss  Family  Robinson "  are  fairly 
charged  with  the  unuttered  determination 
some  day  to  live  on  a  tropical  island  in  a 
tropical  sea,  and  are  possibly  dearer  to  me 
because  the  determination  was  really  carried 
out.  As  I  thumb  the  greasy  old  pages  (for 
the  books  were  old  before  my  time)  I  am 
once  more  on  my  island.  All  about  us  are 
verdure-covered  islets,  that  but  a  century 
ago  were  the  homes  of  the  fierce  Malayan 
pirates.  A  rocky  beach,  that  contracts  and 
expands  as  the  tide  rises  and  falls,  encircles 
the  island,  on  which  glisten  a  hundred  varie- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  87 

ties  of  shells,  exposing  their  delicate  shades 
of  color  to  the  sun.  Coral  formations  of 
endless  design  and  shape  form  a  submarine 
garden  of  wondrous  beauty,  through  whose 
shrubs,  branches,  and  ferns  the  brilliantly- 
colored  fish  of  the  southern  seas  sport  like 
goldfish  in  some  vast  aquarium.  From 
under  a  great  almond  tree  we  watch  the 
sun  sink  slowly  to  a  level  with  the  masts 
of  a  bark  that  is  bound  for  Java  and  the 
Bornean  coasts.  The  black,  dead  lava  of 
the  island  becomes  molten  for  the  time. 
A  faint  breeze  nestles  among  the  long  fan- 
like leaves  of  the  palm,  and  brings  out  the 
rich  yellow  tints  with  their  background 
of  green.  A  soft,  sweet  aroma  comes 
from  out  the  almond  tree.  The  red 
sun  and  the  white  sails  of  the  bark  sail 
away  together  for  the  Spice  Islands  of  the 
South  Pacific.  The  dream  of  our  child- 
hood is  being  realized,  and  there  is  no 
disappointment. 

The  Poet.  — ''I  trust  that  'The   Divine 


88  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Comedy  '  has  never  brought  about  a  like 
result  to  the  Reader." 

The  Contributor,  —  "Inferno  is  too  good 
a  place  for  —  " 

The  Parson, —  ''¥\^\  fie!" 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof! " 


VIII 

IT  is  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world  to 
make  a  magazine  pay,  and  the  method 
is  no  secret.  There  is  without  doubt  many 
an  ambitious  journalist  on  this  coast  ready 
to  start  a  rival  to  our  own  the  moment  he 
is  assured  that  the  venture  will  win  him 
fame  and  money.  It  may  not  be  good 
politics  for  the  Sanctum  to  lay  its  heart 
bare,  but  a  secret  is  no  secret  when  shared 
by  a  dozen  persons  and  the  Office  Boy. 
The  magazine  promoter  needs  but  just 
money  enough  to  print  his  first  issue ;  for, 
if  he  take  advantage  of  the  Sanctum's 
receipt,  money  will  pour  in  until  he  will 
imagine  that  the  windows  of  heaven  have 
been  opened  for  his  benefit. 

Here  it  is.     Just  know  what:  the  people 
want  to  read  and  give  it  to  them.     Napo- 
89 


go  As  Talked  in  the  Sanchim 

leon  had  no  difficulty  in  winning  battles. 
He  always  saw  just  where  to  strike,  and 
he  struck  with  all  his  might.  He  knew 
instinctively  where  his  troops  would  be 
of  the  most  service,  and  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate. He  did  the  right  thing  at  the  right 
time. 

Bind  together  ten  articles,  stories,  sketches, 
or  poems,  each  one  of  which  will  demand 
the  attention  of  ten  thousand  people,  and 
you  need  not  worry  about  your  printer's 
bills.  Make  a  magazine  popular.  All  that 
is  needed  is  popular  literature.  If  one  short 
story  will  make  an  author  famous,  it  stands 
to  reason  that  one  popular  article  a  month 
ought  to  make  a  magazine  sell. 

But  the  rub  comes  in  deciding  what  will 
catch  the  public  eye.  Did  you  ever  try  to 
make  up  a  list  of  subjects  on  which  articles 
could  be  written  that  would  have  a  fair 
chance  of  selling,  each,  say,  ^v^  hundred 
copies  of  a  magazine  ?     It  is  lots  of  fun. 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  The  mail ! " 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum  gi 

There  are  seven  manuscript  stories,  one 
with  twelve  cents  postage  due ;  four  manu- 
script articles ;  three  letters  of  advice ;  two 
kicks ;  twenty-one  postal  card  requests  for 
sample  copies,  seventeen  of  which  are  south 
of  the  Mason  and  Dixon  line ;  a  change  of 
address ;  seven  subscriptions ;  one  discon- 
tinuance ;  eleven  manuscript  poems,  and  a 
design  in  ink  for  a  tail-piece. 

The  Reader,  — "  Here  are  four  sketches, 
apropos  of  our  talk  on  salable  manuscripts. 
While  I  read  their  titles,  let  the  Sanctum 
decide  how  many  magazines  each  would 
sell:  — 

"  I .  'An  Ascent  of  Popocatepetl.'  2.  '  A 
Journey  to  California  in  '49.'  3.  '  The 
Intemperance  of  Temperance.'  4.  'Feath- 
ered Songsters  of  the  Pacific  Coast.'  " 

The  Sanctum,  —  "  Possibly  fifty  —  to  their 
authors." 

The  Reader,  —  "I  should  judge  from 
the  first  paragraph  of  each,  that  all  four  of 
the  manuscripts  submitted  are  well  written 


\B  R  A  «  y- 

or  -TB*  _ 

TJNIVERSITT 


92         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

and  make  interesting  reading,  and  yet  the 
unanimous  verdict  is  that  if  they  were  pub- 
lished in  any  one  number  of  the  magazine 
their  united  selling  abilities  would  be  fifty. 
In  other  words,  our  rival  who  expects  to 
make  his  magazine  pay  would  do  well  not  to 
choose  any  one  of  them." 

The  Poet,  —  "And  yet,  no  doubt,  they 
would  be  more  satisfactory  to  the  regular 
magazine  reader  and  subscriber  than  the 
special  article  that  will  sell  ten  thousand 
copies  to  the  irregular  buyers.  Do  you 
remember  how  weary  the  public  became 
before  the  War  articles  were  finished  in 
the  Century?  And  yet  they  trebled  the 
receipts  of  that  company,  and  secured  the 
attention  of  a  class  of  readers  that  had 
never  before  cared  whether  the  magazine 
lived  or  died." 

The  Contributor.  —  "  There  are  special 
articles  that  nine  good  judges  would  swear 
were  inspirations  and  would  sell  thousands, 
but   they  are    financial   failures    because    of 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         93 

the  character  of  the  special  audiences  inter- 
ested. There  was  the  twenty  page  special 
in  our  April  number  on  '  The  Jew  in  San 
Francisco/  It  was  written  by  a  Jewish 
rabbi  and  a  Gentile,  both  of  whom  were 
interesting  and  accurate  writers,  and  it  was 
beautifully  illustrated.  It  appealed  directly 
to  sixty  thousand  Jews,  all  well-to-do,  in 
this  city,  and  a  hundred  thousand  more  in 
this  magazine's  field.  A  big  edition  was 
printed,  you  remember.  It  was  a  dire  finan- 
cial failure,  although  a  multitude  of  papers 
noticed  and  copied  it.  Why  ?  Because  of 
the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  class  ap- 
pealed to.  Those  most  interested  bought 
a  few  copies  and  passed  them  around ;  a 
penny  saved  is  a  penny  earned.  On  the 
other  hand,  you  will  remember  that  the 
Artist's  contribution  in  the  July  number 
on  '  Some  San  Francisco  Illustrators '  was  a 
tremendous  and  unexpected  success.  It 
sold  out  the  entire  edition,  and  yet  it  only 
appealed    to  a  few  dozen    artists    and  their 


94  ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

friends,  the  assessable  valuation  of  whose 
combined  property  would  not  cause  a  cov- 
etous smile  to  creep  over  the  face  of  any  of 
the  Jews  cited  in  the  former  article.  Why, 
again  ?  Because  talent  is  generous  to  a 
fault,  and  wealth  miserly  to  a  degree.  So,  I 
say,  there  is  much  in  choosing  an  audience. 

"  The  responsible  head  of  a  magazine, 
unless  he  be  a  born  editor  with  the  mark 
on  his  brow,  takes  the  same  chances  in 
choosing  the  matter  for  each  number  as 
the  general  does  in  ordering  an  attack,  or  the 
gambler  in  picking  out  his  horse  at  the 
races.  If  he  can  only  make  up  his  mind 
as  to  what  is  timely  and  what  the  public 
appetite  demands,  he  is  a  success,  even  if  he 
cannot  conjugate  amo  or  if  he  spells  bird 
with  a  u.  There  are  books  and  books ; 
there  are  magazines  and  magazines  ;  but  only 
once  in  a  while  is  there  a  book,  and  once 
in  two  whiles  a  magazine,  that  holds  the 
great  roving,  restless  public  eye  or  touches 
the  indifferent  pubHc  heart." 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         95 

The  Reviewer,  —  "I  suggest  that  instead 
of  offering  ten  thousand  dollars  for  a  prize 
story,  we  offer  a  hundred  to  any  one  who 
will  simply  suggest  a  title  for  a  popu- 
lar article  —  one  for  each  month.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  write ;  what  we  want  is 
ideas." 

The  Manager,  —  "  The  offer  is  registered." 

The  Parson.  —  "I  have  a  subject  to  sub- 
mit that  will  sell  the  required  ten  thousand 
copies.  *  Well-known  Paintings  in  San 
Francisco  Saloons,  with  incidentally  a  de- 
scription of  interiors.'  " 

There  was  meat  for  thought  in  the  good 
Parson's  remark.  After  all,  man  does  not 
live  by  bread  alone,  and  for  one  I  wish  that 
the  magazine  was  as  untrammelled  as  the 
Parson.  No  one  dictates  what  he  shall 
preach.  A  few  Sundays  since  he  took  his 
text  from  Proverbs  xxvii.  15,  "A  continual 
dropping  in  a  very  rainy  day  and  a  conten- 
tious woman  are  alike."  The  sermon  lasted 
for  half  an  hour.     Not   being  a  woman  I 


96         As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

did  not  take  it  to  myself,  but  it  was  strong, 
clear,  and  pointed,  and  I  watched  the  face 
of  the  handsome  sister  that  I  was  sure  it 
was  aimed  at.  She  is  worth  a  million,  and 
I  could  not  but  admire  the  Parson's  hardi- 
hood. "  What  perfectly  lovely  talks  !  "  she 
said,  as  we  passed  down  the  aisle  together ; 
"and  the  nicest  thing  about  them  is  that 
they  are  so  poetic  and  allegorical ;  I  just 
love  the  dear  old  Parson  ! " 

I  looked  up  into  the  great  rose  window 
through  which  the  sun  was  struggling,  and 
thought,  "  Should  I  take  that  independence 
and  freedom  of  expression  in  the  *  Etc'  we 
should  lose  every  advertiser  within  thirty 
days."  And  yet  the  Parson,  who  is  so 
popular  that  he  can  say  the  most  awful 
truths  without  exciting  a  murmur,  reviles 
us  for  wanting  to  be  popular.  The  good 
man  does  not  know  it,  but  it  is  these  very 
tirades  in  good  English  that  draw  a  large 
class  of  his  wealthy  pewholders.  They 
like   to   feel   the   lash    playing  about   their 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum         97 

tough  hides.  It  Is  a  pleasurable  stimulant 
after  six  days  of  obsequiousness  and  fawnings 
from  their  peers.  The  Parson  cannot  lay 
it  on  too  strong  to  please  them ;  they  even 
uncover  their  weal  points  so  that  he  will  be 
sure  and  see  them.  They  chuckle  quietly 
to  themselves  as  they  drop  a  gold  piece  on 
the  plate,  but  woe  to  the  man  that  points 
his  finger. 

Of  course  there  are  things  that  are  only 
thought  even  in  the  Sanctum,  and  so  the 
Parson,  not  knowing  what  was  going  on 
inside  of  his  colleagues'  brains,  continued 
a  little  pompously  :  — 

The  F arson,  —  "I  believe,  and  I  think  I 
live  up  to  my  beliefs,  in  complete  indepen- 
dence of  thought,  independence  of  speech 
and  action.  If  you  run  special  articles  be- 
cause you  think  they  will  pay  and  not  be- 
cause you  know  they  are  good,  you  lose 
your  independence." 

The  Artist,  —  "How  about   the  Sunday 


98  As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

odors  of  benzine  that  have  come  in  with 
white  kid  gloves  ?  Does  it  show  an  inde- 
pendence of  the  male  members '  olfactory- 
nerves  or  an  independence  in  dress  ? " 

The  Parson  was  more  than  particular 
about  his  dress  —  he  was  fashionable ;  that 
is,  he  would  be  picked  out  of  a  crowd  of 
well-groomed  men  as  the  best-dressed  one. 
He  does  not  gracefully  stand  chaffing  on 
the  subject,  and  maintains  that  he  knows 
the  difference  between  the  gentleman  and  the 
dude.  Then  he  is  neat.  His  laundry  is 
of  the  snowy  whiteness  of  new  linen.  He 
will  not  excuse  dirt.  "Dirt  is  matter  out 
of  place,"  he  remarks,  as  he  gazes  sorrow- 
ing! y  at  the  Occasional  Visitor's  vest  front 
—  for  the  O.  V.  is  mighty  about  the  girth, 
and  insists  on  wearing  one  white  waistcoat 
a  week.  "  Madam,"  said  the  Parson  to  his 
soprano,  who  is  not  noted  for  spotless  cuffs 
and  always  asks  everybody's  opinion  regard- 
ing their  cleanliness,  "if  there  is  any  doubt 
upon  the  subject,  they  are  dirty." 


As  Talked  in  the  Sa^mV^^^^'^^ 

ne  Parson,  —  "I  believe  m  indepen- 
dence  in  dress  among  the  Fiji  Islanders ;  but 
I  insist  on  dependence  on  dress  in  San 
Francisco.  Good  clothes  force  one  to  be 
respectable.  They  are  an  outward  and 
visible  sign,  not  that  their  owners  will  re- 
spect you  and  your  opinions  if  you  will, 
but  that,  at  least,  they  will  treat  them  with 
a  certain  dignity.  The  clergyman  who  goes 
about  wearing  the  Occasional  Visitor's  vest  " 
(the  O.  V.  buttoned  up  his  coat  with  a  mo- 
tion that  seemed  to  imply  that  he  did  not 
"respect  the  cloth  "),  "  with  a  coat  to  match, 
trousers  that  bag  at  the  knees,  and  laundry 
that  has  been  trimmed,  may  be  powerful  in 
prayer,  but  his  influence  among  his  congre- 
gation will  soon  become  nil.  The  country 
parson  that  borrowed  a  five-dollar  gold  piece 
of  his  deacon  before  the  service  and  returned 
it  directly  after  leaving  the  pulpit  had  the 
right  idea.  A  man,  no  matter  how  full  of 
the  spirit  he  may  be,  cannot  talk  boldly  and 
confidently  of  the  rewards  of  religion  with 


loo       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

empty  pockets  any  more  than  he  can  con- 
vince his  hearers  that  religion  pays  when 
habited  in  old-fashioned,  seedy  garments. 
If  my  congregation  is  the  best-dressed  one 
in  the  city,  I  am  proud  of  the  fact,  and  I 
trust  that  my  example  has  had  something 
to  do  with  it.  In  any  case,  I  am  ready  to 
believe  that  their  good  clothes  on  the  Sab- 
bath are,  in  part,  a  compliment  to  me." 

The  Parson  has  a  mission  on  the  south 
side  of  Market.  Through  it  he  distributes 
the  clothes  that  his  well-dressed  congregation 
have  deemed  too  shiny  at  the  elbows  or 
too  baggy  at  the  knees  to  meet  their  pas- 
tor's critical  glance.  Last  Christmas  a  wagon 
load  of  such  garments  went  into  the  homes 
of  the  poor  from  its  doors.  One  of  the 
Parson's  vestrymen  lost  a  leg  at  Appomat- 
tox, and  he  disdains  to  wear  a  cork  one. 
His  trousers  lack  one  leg.  After  the  ser- 
vices on  the  Sunday  after  Christmas  an  old 
gray-haired  sister  arose  and  announced, 
"My  son  John  is  a  thousand  times  obliged 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        loi 

to  yer,  sir,  fur  the  clothes ;  but  he  says  that 
if  the  man  will  send  him  the  cloth  for  the 
leg  he  fergot,  he  will  be  able  ter  come  ter 
church  next  Sunday."  Not  only  the  cloth 
but  a  complete  suit  was  sent  the  sufferer  by 
the  hero  of  Appomattox,  and  in  time  John 
joined  the  church. 

The  Parson,  —  "It  was  the  clothes  that 
did  it.  It  is  much  easier  to  win  a  man's 
heart  when  it  is  covered  with  a  clean,  self- 
respecting  suit  of  clothes,  than  when  hidden 
away  in  the  greasy  overalls  of  his  week-day 
labors.  The  Contributor  wants  free  baths 
for  the  poor;  I  want  to  dress  them  in 
clothes  that  make  them  ashamed  to  get 
dirty.  Clean  hands  and  clean  clothes  make 
clean  hearts." 

The  Poet,  — 

**  Through  tatter*  d  clothes  small  vices  do  appear ; 
Robes  and  furrM  gowns  hide  all.** 

The  Parson,  —  "  Shakspere  and  our  Poet 
are  no  doubt  exceedingly  smart,  but  I  prefer 
to  follow  the  fashions  —  big   sleeves,  crino- 


I02        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctttm 

lines  or  hoops,  high  collars,  patent  leathers, 
or  '  willie-boys'  —  rather  than  have  our 
men  and  women  boycott  the  tailor  and  lose 
their  ambition  to  vie  with  one  another  on 
good  clothes  and  good  deeds.  You  may 
go  unshaven  if  you  will,  but  I  confess  a 
weakness  for  the  barber's  chair." 

The  Parson's  talk  had  its  effect,  for  the 
Occasional  Visitor  borrowed  two  bits  of  the 
sermonizer  with  the  published  intention 
of  getting  a  shave  and  having  his  clothes 
brushed. 

The  Office  Boy.  —  "  Proof!  " 


IX 

THERE  was  a  circus  in  town,  and  its 
cohorts  were  gleaming  in  purple  and 
gold  directly  beneath  the  Sanctum  windows. 
A  score  of  horsemen  and  a  half-dozen 
lancers  were  in  the  lead.  There  was  a 
troupe  of  Sitting  Bulls  and  a  steam  piano. 
The  Office  Boy,  from  the  fire  escape, 
dropped  an  overripe  fig  into  the  lap  of 
the  Queen  of  Carthage,  who  was  luxuriously 
idling  in  a  golden  chariot.  The  Queen's 
Celtic-Ethiopian  fan-bearer  shook  his  gaunt- 
let at  the  admiring  convoy  of  small  boys 
who  had  dared  to  laugh.  With  her  sceptre, 
her  Majesty  scraped  the  tropical  jam  from 
her  regal  robes,  and  the  poet  composed  an 
original  sonnet  on  the  spot  beginning,  — 
**  Uneasy  is  the  head  that  wears  a  crown.** 
103 


104       ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

The  accident,  however,  did  not  stop  the 
procession,  although  it  retired  the  Office 
Boy,  and  caused  him  to  miss  the  elephants. 
From  time  immemorial  the  circus  has 
come  to  town,  to  every  town,  once  a  year. 
The  same  old-fashioned  circus,  as  change- 
less as  marbles  and  whooping-cough.  The 
small  boy  always  goes,  in  spite  of  parents 
or  funds,  and  the  big  boy  relates  the  same 
old  story  of  how  he  earned  his  way  by 
carrying  water  for  the  elephants,  when,  more 
than  likely,  he  stole  in  under  the  canvas. 
The  newspapers  of  the  following  day  con- 
tain the  same  familiar  pictures  of  the  small 
boy  with  bandaged  neck  who  tried  to  watch 
three  rings  at  once,  and  of  the  good  deacon 
who  went  to  teach  his  grandchildren  natural 
history,  and  never  mentioned  the  girls  in 
tights  who  rode  bareback.  Everything  is 
just  the  same  as  when  the  Parson  and  the 
Contributor  were  half  a  century  younger. 
The  Circassian  lady  and  the  living  skeleton, 
the  fat  woman  and  the   India-rubber    man, 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        105 

were  there,  and  the  lion  tamer  did  the 
identical  tricks  that  lion  tamers  have  been 
doing  since  the  days  of  Daniel.  Every- 
body ate  peanuts,  and  it  rained  in  the  after- 
noon. The  clown  was  not  funny  ;  but  the 
people  laughed,  felt  they  had  been  hum- 
bugged, vowed  never  to  go  again,  and 
within  a  year  were  false  to  their  oaths.  The 
calliope  struck  up  "  The  Suwanee  River," 
and  the  Office  Boy  disappeared  down  the 
stairs  with  the  speed  of  a  California  road- 
runner. 

There  are  some  things  that  neither  philos- 
ophy, reason,  nor  cold-blooded  analysis  can 
strip  of  their  fascination.  Why  it  is  so  be- 
longs more  truly  to  the  realms  of  philosophy 
than  the  fact  itself  There  is  no  mystery  in 
the  side  show  that  we  have  not  explored  a 
hundred  times ;  there  are  no  surprises  in  the 
circus  ring  that  are  not  as  ancient  as  the  cir- 
cus itself;  there  are  no  strange  animals  in  the 
cages,  and  no  one  expects  them.     It  is  some- 


io6       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

thing  else  we  go  to  see  year  after  year  — 
something  that  is  as  intangible  and  illusive 
as  life.  And  with  no  two  persons  is  that 
something  the  same. 

There  was  a  fearful  din  in  the  great  rings 
below.  The  chariot  race  was  on,  and  the 
charioteers  were  urging  their  steeds  with 
whip  and  voice.  The  sawdust  was  flying, 
and  a  clown  was  chasing  and  yelling  behind 
the  racers  and  then  scrambling  grotesquely 
under  the  ropes  as  the  steeds  overtook  him. 
Boys  were  shouting  and  children  screaming. 
For  all  the  world  it  was  the  chariot  race  from 
"  Ben  Hur."  But  the  Contributor  noted  it 
not.  There  was  a  dreamy,  far-away  look  in  his 
eyes.  The  circus  he  saw  had  only  one  ring ; 
the  tent  held  but  a  handful  of  spectators ; 
there  was  but  one  elephant,  and  the  giraffe 
was  a  thing  of  the  sign  painter's  imagination. 
It  was  the  circus  he  would  see  as  long  as  he 
lived  —  the  circus  of  his  boyhood. 

For  weeks  all  the  barns  that  stood  up 
against   the   wide,  dusty,  rambling   country 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        107 

road,  the  main  street  in  Whitesville,  had 
been  covered  with  great  flaunting  pictures 
of  lovely  women,  unbridled  chargers,  and 
savage  beasts.  Envied  was  the  boy  whose 
father  owned  one  of  these  barns,  for  the 
wonderful  advance  agent  had  left  behind 
him  a  golden  stream  of  yellow  cardboards 
that  bore  the  magic  legend,  "  Admit  One." 

"Admit  One!" — what  dreams,  what 
hopes,  what  worlds  it  summoned  to  the 
mind's  eye  of  each  and  every  urchin  ! 
The  Parson  never  pictured  Paradise  in 
such  glorious  hues.  Could  he  do  so,  he 
would  be  the  greatest  word  painter  since 
John  the  Evangelist. 

The  woods  that  crowned  the  fat  little  hills 
glowed  like  a  halo  in  their  russets  and  golds 
and  browns  on  the  morning  when  the  circus 
came  to  town.  At  five  o'clock  sharp  we  all 
stole  out  of  bed  and  up  the  winding  road 
that  led  over  those  hills  to  Spring  Mills. 
The  grass  was  still  wet,  while  the  spider 
webs,  as  big  as  plates,  that   had  sprung  up 


io8        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

like  mushrooms  during  the  night,  shone  like 
pale  morning  moons  in  the  light.  The  deep 
dust  was  warm  below  a  crust  of  dew,  and 
we  ran  our  blue  toes  far  into  it  as  we  raced. 
Just  above  Mr.  Chapin*s  watering-trough  a 
black,  lumbering,  swaying  mass  was  coming 
down  the  hill.  Clouds  of  dust  hedged  it  in, 
and  sharp,  strange  cries  came  from  out  the 
demi-lights,  followed  by  a  string  of  oaths 
that  made  us  catch  our  several  breaths.  We 
scrambled  through  the  fringe  of  elders  and 
up  on  the  rail  fence,  as  the  elephant,  with  a 
little  red-fuzzed  being  on  his  back,  burst 
upon  our  enraptured  vision. 

No  elephant  again  was  ever  half  as  big. 
We  dared  hardly  breathe  until,  from  the 
tops  of  great  boxlike  wagons  whose  sides 
were  covered  with  the  counterfeit  present- 
ment of  lions,  tigers,  and  a  dozen  animals  that 
never  seemed  quite  real  before,  some  show- 
men spied  us.  Then  we  gradually  gathered 
courage  and  shouted  back  timid  answers  to 
their  coarse  jokes. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        109 

It  did  not  strike  us  then  that  we  were 
parts  of  a  picture  that  had  never  been 
painted,  but  will  some  day.  "  The  Circus 
Coming  to  Town,"  as  we  knew  it,  would 
win  the  medal  for  the  artist.  The  dust 
begrimed,  shopworn  elephant,  the  score  of 
gaudy  cages,  the  draped  grand  band  wagon, 
the  little  company  of  sleepy  riders  on  spirit- 
less horses,  the  cheap  chariot  trailing  igno- 
miniously  behind  the  baggage  van,  the 
heads  of  the  "dazzling  queens  of  the  ring" 
peeping  from  between  the  canvas  covers  of 
a  leather-springed  couch,  —  all  half  revealed 
in  clouds  of  heavy  dust,  the  brown  of  the 
road,  the  red  of  the  sumac,  the  green  of 
fields  and  the  gold  of  the  stubble,  the  soft  blue 
of  the  sky,  —  and  the  wonder-eyed  admira- 
tion of  a  dozen  little  country  boys  in  blue 
jeans  and  chip  hats,  are  but  items  in  the 
unconscious  stage.  Far  below  us  was  the 
valley  and  the  little  town  —  one  aimless 
street  two  miles  long,  with  houses  and  gar- 
dens and  trees  on  either  side,  and  a  district 


no        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

schoolhouse  at  either  end.  Cryder  Creek 
wound  and  twisted  and  doubled  back  and 
forth  as  though  loath  to  leave  the  grist  mill 
and  the  swimming  pond. 

The  chariot  race  was  over.  The  din  sub- 
sided so  that  the  clang  of  the  cars  without 
was  distinguishable.  I  pressed  the  Con- 
tributor's hand.  He  looked  up  with  a 
start.  There  was  a  foolish,  happy  smile  on 
his  lips. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ? ''  I  asked,  al- 
though I  knew. 

"  Carrying  water  for  the  elephant,"  he 
answered,  and  we  both  laughed. 

The  Poet,  — 

**  How  sad  and  bad  and  mad  it  was  ! 
But  then,  how  it  was  sweet !  ** 

The  Contributor  was  passing  up  and  down 
the  Sanctum  in  shoes  whose  creaking  testi- 
fied arrogantly  to  their  newness. 

The  Contributor.  — "  The  small  boy  is  a 
born  hero-worshipper.     At  ten  he  falls  down 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        iii 

before  the  lion  tamer  and  the  leader  of  the 
brass  band.  When  the  circus  departs,  he 
stretches  a  rope  from  one  gnarled  apple  tree 
to  another  and,  time  and  again,  comes  within 
an  inch  of  breaking  his  precious  neck  in 
emulating  the  tight-rope  walker.  At  twelve 
or  fifteen  his  big  brother  commands  an 
undivided  admiration  that  Robin  Hood 
never  received;  such  as  only  Boswell  knew 
how  to  bestow.  At  sixteen  or  seventeen 
he  has  picked  out  some  national  hero  and 
burns  to  make  public  speeches  and  vote  for 
him  when  he  runs  for  Governor  or  Presi- 
dent. It  is  fortunate  if  his  hero  is  worthy 
of  his  worship,  if  no  one  shatters  his 
idol.  It  is  better  that  the  worshipper 
should  grow  strong  and  reliant  in  the  fame 
of  the  worshipped.*' 

The  Reader,  —  "  The  Contributor's  senti- 
mental mood  does  him  credit.  The  boy  is 
but  father  to  the  man.  Call  in  the  Office 
Boy  and  find  out  which  one  of  us  he  has 
placed  on  a  pedestal." 


112        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

The  Office  Boy,  — "  There  is  a  man  out- 
side with  a  bill  for  —  " 

The  Sanctum,  —  "  Tell  him  to  call  around 
again  after  the  magazine  comes  out." 

The  Office  Boy,— (In  outer  office)  "All 
gone  out  to  lunch." 

Man  with  Bill  —  "This  is  the  seven- 
teenth time  I've  been  up  here,  and  I  don't 
intend  to  come  again.     See  !  " 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  No,  I  don't  see." 

Man  with  Bill,  — "  Don't  get  fresh, 
son!" 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  I  won't,  if  that's  what 
ails  you." 

M^«.— "What's  that?" 

The  Office  5^j.  — "The  Wilson  Bill  has 
put  a  duty  on  salt." 

Man,  — "  This  is  no  salt  bill ;  it's  for 
shoes." 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Snow-shoes  ?  " 

Man.  —  "  Naw,  just  shoes." 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "Oh,  just  feet  shoes. 
There's  some  mistake ;  we  all  wear  boots." 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        113 

The  Reader,  —  "  That  boy  needs  a  lesson 
or  two  in  hero-worship." 

The  Contributor,  —  "  He  will  do." 

And  the  good  man's  shoes  were  hushed 
while  the  gentleman  with  a  bill  for  the  same 
stamped  defiantly  down  the  hall. 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof!  " 


"  T  HAVE  been   making  a  collection   of 

A  letters  to  the  Editor  from  would-be 
contributors/*  remarked  the  Reader  as  he 
placed  a  big  blue  "R  &  D*'  on  the  envelope 
in  his  hand. 

The  Parson, — "I  would  prefer  a  collection 
of  scalps.  If  you  intend  to  make  sport  of  the 
struggles  of  these  mute,  inglorious  Miltons,  I 
must  refuse  to  be  a  party  to  the  proceedings." 

The  Contributor,  — "  And  yet  I  under- 
stand his  reverence  attended  a  bull  fight  at 
Madrid." 

The  Artist,  —  "  But  have  you  heard  him 
lecture  on  it  ?  It  is  the  most  realistic  thing 
I  have  ever  listened  to.  I  nearly  jumped 
out  of  my  pew  and  hurrahed  when  the  mata- 
dor sprang  to  the  bull's  neck  and  gave  it 
the  coup  de  grace,  I  made  up  my  mind  then 
and  there  that  I  would  go  a  thousand  miles 
114 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        1 1 5 

out  of  my  way  to  see  a  bull  fight  as  the  Par- 
son saw  it." 

The  Parson,  —  "  You  understand  my  mo- 
tive. I  tried,  in  my  humble  way,  to  arouse 
the  indignation  of  my  hearers  over  the 
cruelty,  ferocity,  and  inhumanity  of  this 
relic  of  barbarous  ages." 

The  Artist,  —  "  You  succeeded.  Every 
member  of  your  congregation  would  break 
his  precious  neck  to  see  such  a  show.  1  do 
not  forget  either  that  it  put  three  hundred 
dollars  into  the  treasury  of  the  Guild." 

The  Contributor,  —  "  Civilization  is  only  a 
garment.  It  will  wear  out  or  slip  off  once 
in  a  while,  in  spite  of  the  Decalogue,  and 
reveal  the  savage." 

The  Reader,  —  "  Mine  has  been  worn  off 
by  such  missives  as  these.  Listen,  fellow- 
Apaches  and  matadors :  — 

'  Dear  Editor :  I  feel  that  I  know  you.  I  am 
a  constant  reader  of  your  fairly  well  done  "As 
Talked  in  the  Sanctum."  It  has  occurred  to  me 
that  the  magazine  might  be  improved  in  certain 


ii6        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

departments.  Of  course  you  are  not  in  a  position 
to  judge  as  to  the  merits  of  your  own  work  — be- 
ing on  the  inside.  Now  I  am  willing  to  show 
you  clearly  how  you  look  to  others  and  write  you 
a  letter  of  personal  and  confidential  advice  once  a 
month,  which,  if  you  will  strictly  follow,  will  place 
your  magazine  far  ahead  in  every  particular  of 
every  magazine  published.  In  addition,  I  could 
create  and  edit  a  department  that  would  make  a 
place  for  you  in  a  million  hearts.  I  submit  a  list 
of  one  hundred  and  twelve  brilliant  epigrams.  I 
have  seventeen  hundred  of  these  ofF-flashes  of  my 
brain  that  I  have  jotted  down  during  the  last 
twenty-eight  years.  I  claim  no  originality  for  them, 
although  they  are  original.  They  came  to  me  as 
I  slept,  walked,  and  ate.  They  are  thunderbolts 
and  lightning  strokes,  world  thoughts  of  which  I 
am  the  humble  vehicle.  I  am  willing  to  share 
with  yoii  the  fame  they  will  bring  me.  Kindly 
remit  the  first  fifty  dollars  as  soon  as  possible,  so 
that  my  mind  can  be  free  from  petty  cares  to  enter 
your  service  wholly. 

P.  S.     The  epigrams  might  be  illustrated. 

The  Epigrams  :  — 

A  new  wagon  is  better  than  a  broken  one. 

A  maiden  that  has  never  loved  does  not  know 
what  love  means. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        1 1 7 

It  is  dangerous  to  ride  an  unbroken  musteng. 

Life  is  a  mystery. 

It  is  better  to  be  than  not  to  be. 

Etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  etc'  " 

As  no  one  ventured  a  remark  on  this  first 
of  the  Reader*s  collection,  the  conversation 
lagged.  Such  missives  were  too  common  to 
excite  comment.  There  is  no  better  oppor- 
tunity for  the  study  of  human  nature  than 
the  relations  between  editor  and  contributor. 
It  is  difficult  to  find  a  word  or  phrase  to 
describe  it.  It  is  seldom  quite  friendship, 
never  open  war,  possibly  a  sort  of  "veiled 
hostility."  The  standpoint  of  the  editor, 
who  is  the  purchaser,  and  the  contributor, 
who  is  the  vender,  are  so  widely  different 
that  it  is  beyond  all  reason  to  expect  them 
ever  to  come  together.  The  farmer  brings 
his  potatoes  to  market  with  the  hope  of  sell- 
ing them.  If  he  fails,  he  holds  no  local 
demand  for  the  potatoes,  and  sends  them 
elsewhere.  The  merchant  might  buy  out 
of  sentiment,  but  no  one  expects  it.     Be- 


1 1 8        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

cause  he  has  purchased  other  potatoes  is 
not  a  sign  of  partiality.  In  a  great  measure 
the  case  is  a  parallel  one.  An  editor  seldom 
buys  manuscript  for  sentimental  reasons, 
although  he  continually  has  appeals  like 
this :  — 

"  I  send  you  the  enclosed  poems.  They  are 
original,  though  you  .nay  not  think  so,  because  they 
are  so  much  like  Milton's.  I  hope  you  will  be 
able  to  pay  what  they  are  worth,  for  I  am  a  poor 
widow,  and  if  I  do  not  get  enough  to  live  on  from 
my  poetry,  I  shall  have  to  take  in  washing  —  and 
there  is  so  much  competition  from  the  Chinese  in 
that  line  here  in  San  Pasqual." 

Another  sad  case :  — 

"Will  you  not  accept  the  enclosed  poem  on 
Mount  Tamalpais?  I  need  the  money.  Father 
fell  and  broke  his  leg  last  March  and  has  not  been 
able  to  do  a  stroke  of  work  since.  If  I  could 
afford  to  pay  for  a  doctor  to  come  up  from  Marys- 
ville,  every  one  tells  us  Father  would  get  well. 
Will  you  not  help  me  by  taking  this  poem  ?  It 
is  my  first  poem,  although  I  am  very  clever  at 
jingles." 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        1 19 

Alas,  there  was  more  poetry  on  hand  in 
the  office  than  could  be  used  for  two  years. 
Two  poems  —  a  sonnet  and  a  quatrain  — 
had  been  published  on  Mount  Tamalpais 
within  twelve  months  and,  lastly,  the  poems 
offered  were  of  the  "Little  Ella  Lee" 
variety.  No  doubt  the  people  at  Crayon 
Gulch  and  San  Pasqual  held  indignation 
meetings  when  the  poems  came  back.  Yet 
they  would  have  written  us  down  "  tender- 
feet  "  if  we  paid  one  dollar  for  a  hundred 
pounds  of  rotten  potatoes. 

"If  you  will  send  me  what  you  consider  the 
enclosed  story  worth,  I  will  donate  it  toward 
building  the  church.  We  are  having  a  hard 
struggle  to  keep  our  little  light  burning  here  at 
Dogtown,  and  I  am  devoting  my  pen  to  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Lord.'* 

She  might  have  devoted  the  postage 
stamps  she  used  on  her  lucubrations. 

Then  comes  the  youth  who  wants  glory, 
who  has  talent,  or  thinks  he  has,  which 
amounts  to  the  same  thing.     He  tells  you 


I20        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

grandly  not  to  let  the  price  stand  in  the 
way.  He  appeals  to  your  own  first  steps 
and  early  struggles  to  obtain  a  literary  foot- 
ing ;  he  complains  of  the  injustice  of  other 
editors,  and  insinuatingly  remarks  that  the 
editor  of  the  Esparto  Chronicle  has  spoken 
very  highly  of  your  good  judgment  and 
general  kindness. 

You  admire  the  refreshing  ingenuousness 
of  the  supplicant,  and  wish  him  well.  Some 
day  he  may  have  one  of  his  bright  stories 
accepted,  and  then  he  will  be  shocked  to 
discover  that  people  do  not  point  him  out 
on  the  street,  or  whisper  as  he  passes, 
"  There  goes  the  author  of  '  A  Living 
Sacrifice.* "  It  will  take  him  years  to  for- 
give the  Sanctum  for  refusing  his  first  manu- 
script, and  his  unspoken  prayer  will  be  to 
become  so  famous  that  he  will  be  able 
haughtily  to  refuse  our  timid  request  for 
something  from  his  pen. 

A  letter  came  in  the  mail  to-day  which 
briefly  said :  — 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        121 

"  Dear  Sir  :  You  will  no  doubt  be  delighted 
to  hear  that  my  essay  on  Walt  Whitman,  which 
you  refused,  was  accepted  by  the  Atlantic.^* 

It  was  sarcastic  in  tone,  but  the  writer 
little  suspected  that  we  were  honestly  pleased 
with  her  success.  Had  her  essay  been  on 
Joaquin  Miller  and  as  well  written,  it  would 
have  been  gladly  welcomed.  Walt  Whit- 
man does  not  belong  to  our  field. 

But  the  most  senseless  of  all  the  knockers 
at  the  Sanctum  door  is  the  one  who  devotes 
a  long  letter  to  fulsome  praise  of  the  accom- 
panying manuscript.  "You  will  notice,"  a 
full-grown  man  with  an  M.D.  after  his 
names  writes,  "how  strongly  I  have  drawn 
the  character  of  Lyda.  She  seems  almost 
to  speak,  and  her  actions  and  words  are  so 
perfect  that  she  commands  the  admiration 
and  homage  of  the  reader  from  the  first. 
I  consider  the  pathos  of  the  last  chapter 
equal  to  Dickens,  and  you  will  find  the 
humor  irresistible."  Another  ;  "  Although  I 
am  a  frequent  and  a  valued  contributor  to 


122        ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Eastern  periodicals,  I  have  decided  to  favor 
my  own  magazine  with  one  of  my  best 
efforts."  It  is  useless  to  multiply  examples, 
or  to  speak  of  the  literary  bore  who  always 
insists  on  seeing  the  editor  personally. 
Necessarily,  the  editor  stands  on  the  defen- 
sive. He  has  a  hundred  pages,  more  or 
less,  to  fill  monthly  with  subjects  that  he 
feels  will  interest  the  widest  class  of  readers. 
If  he  allows  his  sympathies  to  warp  his 
judgment,  he  hears  from  it  through  the  busi- 
ness office.  He  is  not  in  the  kindergarten 
business,  neither  is  it  customary  for  him  to 
accept  fees  for  advice.  But  the  question  is 
as  old  as  Mount  Diablo,  and  will  exist  when 
the  last  trump  is  sounded. 

The  Contributor.  — "  We  were  speaking 
about  Cleveland's  Venezuela  Message,  and, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  we  agreed  to  support 
the  Executive  even  to  the  point  of  asking 
for  colonels*  commissions.  If  nothing  better 
comes  of  the  patriotic  wave  that  has  swept 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        123 

over  the  country,  I,  for  one,  hope  that  it  will 
give  Congress  something  to  do  other  than 
revive  the  tariff  discussion.  The  McKinley 
and  Wilson  Bill  agitations,  regardless  of  the 
individual  merits  of  either  bill,  brought  mis- 
ery enough  to  this  country  for  one  decade. 
Supposedly,  a  protective  tariff  is  for  the  pro- 
tection of  home  industries  and  not  for  the 
collection  of  revenue.  If  Horace  Greeley 
were  at  the  head  of  the  Tribune^  he  would  not 
urge,  as  its  editor  now  does,  the  restoration 
of  a  former  tariff  schedule.  Neither  would 
he  maintain  that  the  way  to  raise  a  national 
revenue  is  to  clap  on  higher  duties.  I  am 
in  favor  of  protection  of  home  industries, 
but  I  am  not  in  favor  of  protection  for  reve- 
nue only.  This  talk  of  revenue  in  connec- 
tion with  protection  is  disgusting.  Plunge 
this  country  into  six  months  of  tariff  discus- 
sions, and  the  loss  of  revenue  from  closed 
factories,  business  uncertainty,  and  destruc- 
tion of  confidence  would  be  a  hundred  times 
more  than  any  tariff*  could  bring  in  twice  the 


124        ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

time.  The  income  of  the  government  de- 
pends on  the  stability  of  trade  and  the 
permanence  of  fiscal  laws.  As  a  whole, 
leave  the  tariff  alone.  If  it  is  found  advisa- 
ble and  in  line  with  the  public  needs  to  place 
a  higher  duty  on  any  one  thing,  well  and 
good ;  but  simply  because  wool,  or  steel, 
needs  more  protection,  it  does  not  follow 
that  ink  and  chewing  gum  do." 

The  Parson,  —  "It  is  to  be  hoped  for  the 
Contributor's  sake  that  there  will  be  no  tariff 
on  chewing  gum.  But  I  must  confess  that 
I  am  not  so  much  interested  in  what  Con- 
gress might  do  as  in  what  Congress  ought 
to  do.  I  believe  that  the  President's  action 
will  save  Venezuela's  territory  to  herself,  but 
who  will  raise  a  finger  to  save  the  lives  and 
honor  of  the  native  Christians  in  Turkey  ? 
We  complacently  read  of  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew  and  say  that  such  things 
are  impossible  in  this  century.  The  horrors 
of  the  legalized  murders  and  ravishments 
that  are  taking  place  day  after  day  in  Armenia, 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        125 

right  under  the  eyes  of  Christian  Europe  and 
America,  dwarf  the  most  lurid  accounts  of 
the  persecutions  of  the  Huguenots.  Do  you 
think  if  I  were  President  of  this  country, 
or  Queen  of  Great  Britain,  that  I  would  sit 
still  and  allow  a  weak,  dissolute  Turk  to 
perpetrate  such  a  crime  of  the  century  ? 
Not  I ;  and  I  am  a  man  of  peace.  Sooner 
or  later  the  unspeakable  Turk  has  got  to  be 
brought  to  his  senses.  And  the  nation  that 
undertakes  the  role  of  master  will  win  the 
plaudits  of  history.  We  deprecate  war  be- 
tween the  two  great  branches  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  and  boast  that  England  and 
America,  hand  in  hand,  are  the  great  Chris- 
tianizing power  of  the  century.  '  The  fear 
of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.' 
A  good,  honest  broadside  will  instil  the  holy 
fear  in  the  heart  of  the  Father  of  the  Faith- 
ful, and  do  more  for  the  cause  of  Christianity 
than  all  the  commissions,  or  state  papers, 
since  the  time  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  Let  us 
slap  the  Turk's  cheek  ;  and,  if  he  turns  the 


126        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

other,  let  us  slap  that  as  well.  I  believe  in 
using  our  ironclads  where  they  will  build  up 
a  civilization  and  not  tear  it  down." 

The  Reader.  —  "I  move  that  we  memori- 
alize Congress." 

The  Artist,  —  "  Or  send  out  fighting  par- 
sons and  men-of-war  as  missionaries." 

We  are  never  quite  sure  when  the  Parson 
is  in  earnest.  It  was  he  who  made  the 
famous  speech  when  introducing  Dr.  Parsons, 
the  Unitarian  divine,  to  his  congregation. 
"I  have  asked  Dr.  Parsons  to  talk  to  us 
this  morning,"  he  said;  "Dr.  Parsons  does 
not  believe  in  damnation,  and  he  thinks  we 
shall  all  be  saved.  But  we  hope  and  pray 
for  better  things." 

The  Office  Boy,  — "  Proof! " 


XI 

"rpALKING  shop  again!"  and  the 
X  Parson  politely  screened  a  yawn  as 
the  Manager  of  the  Subscription  Depart- 
ment interrupted  himself  to  look  up  a  batch 
of  letters  received  from  the  several  district 
schools  of  the  State  in  rejoinder  to  repeated, 
possibly  a  little  too  imperative,  invitations  to 
place  our  magazine  in  their  school  libraries. 

The  Manager  paused,  with  his  hand  on 
the  door:  "As  I  am  neither  'a  theological 
theologue  or  pedagogical  pedagogue,'  I  fail 
to  see  how  I  am  in  any  way  responsible  for 
the  literary  pabulum  of  this  thin-skinned 
circle." 

Following  the  lead  of  the  Suisun  Vidette^ 

a  number  of  our   highly  prized    exchanges 

had  felt  called  upon  to  chide  us  editorially 

for  —  "  talking  shop."     The  Milpitas  P^/>«- 

127 


128        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

list  remarked  sarcastically  that  we  "  no  doubt 
talked  to  conceal  our  minds." 

The  Parson.  —  "It  is  an  easy  charge  to 
make  and  one  that  admits  of  little  argu- 
ment ;  but  it  occurs  to  me  that  the  good 
people  who  are  most  apt  to  bring  it  are  not, 
as  a  general  thing,  singularly  eminent  for 
the  luminosity  or  cleverness  of  their  own 
conversations." 

The  Contributor,  — "  As  we  are  talking 
behind  society's  back,  let  that  remark  pass 
as  an  axiom." 

The  Parson.  — "  So  many  things  suggest 
themselves  to  me  in  this  Hne  that  I  think, 
instead  of  taking  the  Manager  to  task,  that 
I  will  ally  myself  with  him.  A  man  of 
affairs  spends  two-thirds  of  his  life  in  his 
shop.  Possibly  one  night  in  a  week  he 
accompanies  his  wife  to  the  house  of  a 
friend.  It  is  his  duty  to  make  himself 
agreeable  —  to  have  on  his  society  air.  If 
he  does  not,  —  '  How  stupid  you  were 
to-night,   dear,  —  you    never   opened    your 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        129 

lips.  That  horrid  Mrs.  So-and-So  was 
there,  and  I  was  so  anxious  to  show  you 
off!'  Mrs.  So-and-So  is  a  famous  talker, 
she  does  not  talk  shop.  There  is  no  shop 
on  earth  that  would  hold  her  She  talks 
about  everything.  Nothing  goes  into  her 
brains  that  does  not  come  instantly  out  of 
her  mouth.  She  interrupts  herself,  but  she 
never  allows  any  one  else  to  interrupt  her. 
She  has  a  strong  mannish  voice,  rather  pleas- 
ant, her  grammar  is  good,  but  her  ideas 
scatter  like  the  seven  plagues  of  Egypt. 
Her  laugh  is  loud,  but  infectious.  Her 
stories  are  bright,  yet  the  best  part  of  them 
is  her  own  laugh  of  appreciation.  She 
does  all  the  talking  for  a  dinner  party  of 
'sixteen,  and  does  it  gladly.  It  is  only  when 
the  men  are  left  to  smoke  their  cigars  that 
they  are  permitted  to  settle  back  and  enjoy 
themselves  in  talking  shop.  And  yet  it  is 
not  shop  any  more  than  our  Sanctum  talks 
are  shop.  Last  evening  we  smoked  two 
cigars,  for  which  I   received  a  well-merited 


130       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

lecture  on  my  way  home,  while  the  Banker 
was  apologizing  for  Mr.  Carlisle's  so-called 
popular  bond  issue. 

"The  Parsoness  said,  'What  in  the  world 
were  you  talking  about,  dear,  that  made  you 
forget  the  ladies  ?  —  something  you  are 
ashamed  of,  I  know.' 

" '  We  were  discussing  bonds,  my  dear,' 
I  answered  humbly. 

"  '  Bonds  ?  —  shop,*  she  snapped  with 
more  warmth  than  I  felt  the  subject  justified. 

" '  And  what  were  the  ladies  talking 
about  ? '   I   ventured. 

" '  Mrs.  Nob  Hill  was  discussing  a  per- 
fectly lovely  trousseau  that  she  had  made 
in  Paris  for  Mabel's  marriage  to  Count 
Oh  !  what  is  his  awful  name  ?  * 

" '  Lovelace,'  I  suggested. 

" '  No,  you  know  Count,  Count  Hard- 
upsy.  It  was  just  magnificent.  I  never 
realized  how  the  time  flew  until  I  looked 
at  the  clock.' 

"  And  then  the  dear  soul  forgot  all  about 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        131 

her  grievance  and  talked  the  most  delight- 
ful dressmaker's  shop  all  the  way  home. 
She  even  neglected  to  remark  that  she  hoped 
the  time  would  come  when  she  could  have 
a  carriage  to  go  out  to  full  dress  affairs  in. 
We  all  talk  shop,  even  our  own  critics  — 
and  they,  worst  of  all.  I  listened  to  the  Par- 
soness  in  conversation  with  one  of  them. 

"  The  Parsoness,  — '  Good  evening,  Mr. 
Never-Talk-Shop.  I  am  glad  to  see  you 
here.    It  has  been  some  months  since  we  met.' 

"  Mr,  Never-  Talk-Shop,  —  *  Yes.  You  see 
I  have  so  little  time  to  myself.  I  rush  down 
to  the  office  every  morning  at  8  o'clock.  I 
snatch  just  time  to  go  up  to  the  Pacific 
Union  for  lunch  and  then  never  get  home 
until  7.  It  is  awful  to  work  so  hard ;  but 
then  I  tell  Mrs.  N.  T.  S.  that  some  day  I 
will  drop  the  office  and  take  a  little  trip  to 
Paris.  You  know,  I  commenced  in  life 
before  I  was  five,  blowing  the  bellows  in 
my  father's  blacksmith  shop,'  etc. 

"  When  Mrs.  P.  said  good  night  to  him. 


132        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

he  remarked  to  me, '  Mrs.  P.  and  I  had  such  a 
good  chat  while  you  and  Mrs.  N.  T.  S.  were 
over  there  talking  shop.  Parsons,  you  know, 
are  great  for  talking  shop.'  And  he  then 
laughed  until  his  plate  became  loose. 

"  Caesar's  Commentaries  are  an  example 
of  shop  talked  to  some  purpose.  I  am 
sorry  that  Alexander,  Hannibal,  and  Shak- 
spere,  and  the  Witch  of  Endor,  did  not  talk 
more  shop.  The  world  would  have  been 
wiser,  and  many  of  the  dark  corners  in  his- 
tory would  have  been  lighted  up." 

The  Reviewer,  —  "  Our  creditors  have  an 
embarrassing  manner  of  talking  shop." 

The  Artist,  —  "  Vive  le  Magasin,  Call  in 
the  Subscription  Manager." 

The  Subscription  Manager,  —  "  Not  if  the 
Artist  is  going  to  take  such  a  mean  advan- 
tage of  our  Sister  Republic." 

The  Artist,  —  "I  never  originated  a  pun 
knowingly  in  my  life.  A  pun  always  sur- 
prises me,  whether  I  am  parent  of  it  or  the 
Reader ;  but  it  never  amuses." 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        133 

The  Reader,  —  "My  pun  can  go  a  step 
farther  in  descent,  for  each  of  them  is  a- 
parent." 

There  are  thirty-two  hundred  schools  in 
the  State  of  California.  The  State  is  gen- 
erous with  its  money,  and  allows  each  dis- 
trict to  have  a  library.  This  magazine  has 
asked  the  fifty-seven  counties  to  indorse  it 
as  worthy  of  a  place  in  these  libraries.  All 
but  three  have  complied.  Following  up 
this  indorsement  it  has  mailed  return  pos- 
tal cards  to  the  several  District  School 
Clerks,  requesting  them  to  subscribe.  The 
Subscription  Manager  sent  out  eight  sets 
of  these  cards,  and  then,  not  securing  all 
the  schools,  he  determined  that  he  would  at 
least  get  a  reply  from  the  unresponsive  ones  ; 
he  decided  on  a  bold  stroke  and  composed 
a  card  as  follows  :  — 

"  Dear  Friend  :  This  is  the  ninth  time  we 
have  written  you.  We  are  going  to  write  nine 
times  more  if  necessary.     We  arc  all  Californians, 


134        ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

working  for  the  best  interests  of  the  State.  We 
have  been  on  the  Coast  twenty-seven  years.  How 
long  have  you  ?  It  is  not  asking  much  of  your 
rich  district  to  take  the  only  magazine  on  the 
Coast.  Will  you  subscribe  ?  If  not,  will  you 
write  us  ?     If  not,  why  not  shake  hands.?  " 

It  brought  either  a  subscription  or  a  reply 
from  nearly  every  district.  For  the  benefit 
of  the  Sanctum  he  had  preserved  a  choice 
array  of  these  answers. 

Selections  done  into  English  by  the  Sub- 
scription Manager  :  — 

"  We  do  not  want  your  magazine.  We 
have  been  in  the  State  long  enough  to  know 
our  business." 

"  When  I  become  so  bereft  of  common 
sense  that  I  cannot  attend  to  my  own  busi- 
ness, you  will  be  the  first  man  I  will  call  on. 
Send  ninety  cards  if  you  like.  Been  on  the 
Coast  long  enough  to  be  your  grandfather. 
Shake." 

"  This  is  nine  times  I  have  told  you,  No.** 

"  We  are  renting  an  organ  and  thinking 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        135 

of  buying  it.  I  have  been  here  nine  years  and 
used  to  get  four  and  five  cents  for  raisins, 
but  now  get  but  one  and  a  half  per  pound. 
How  long  do  you  think  I  can  stand  it  ?  *' 

"  Your  persistency  is  as  sweet  as  a  day  in 
June." 

"You  will  have  to  write  ten  times  to 
raise  our  funds." 

"  Have  been  in  California  four  and  a 
half  years,  from  Michigan,  near  St.  Joseph." 

"  Nine  times  is  enough.  No  more. 
You  are  on  the  Coast  twenty-seven  years  ? 
Born  here,  of  course  —  native  sons  '^.  I  am 
twenty-two  years  on  the  Coast,  a  Californian 
by  choice,  not  by  chance.  When  you  talk 
of  our  *  rich  district,'  you  are  informed 
correctly.  We  have,  as  a  library  and  appa- 
ratus, one  map  and  a  dictionary." 

"  Have  been  on  the  Coast  long  enough 
to  become  accHmated  —  twenty  years.  Too 
many  good  things  are  superfluous." 

"  Don't  trouble  yourselves  any  more  on 
my  account.     No  more  at  present." 


136       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

"  Your  favors  remind  me  of  the  old  song 
entitled  'Ninety  and  Nine.'     Shake  !  '* 

"  You  have  written  nine  times,  and  as 
you  are  an  old  Californian  we  cannot  doubt 
you;  for  we  are  one  of  them,  having  landed 
in  Sacramento  County  on  Christmas  Day, 
1853,  on  the  hurricane  deck  of  an  ox  cart, 
and  in  consequence  can  go  you  a  few  better 
on  the  '  old  *  part.  We  are  still  young  and 
truthful,  having  rubbed  all  that  other  part 
off  against  nuggets  that  we  have  not  been 
fortunate  enough  to  get  our  honest  clutches 
on.     Shake ! " 

"Always  write  on  postals  with  paid 
reply  to  insure  prompt  attention." 

"  No,  we  will  not  be  offended  if  you 
continue  to  write  until  you  secure  our 
subscription.  If  you  start  on  the  job,  I 
advise  you  to  provide  yourself  with  paper 
by  the  ream,  pens  by  the  gross,  and  ink 
by  the  barrel." 

The  longest  of  the  replies,  but  one  of 
several    received   from  the   same  trustee,  is 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        137 

so  good  that  I  venture  to  print  it,  untrans- 
lated. 

"Yours,  in  which  you  still  urge  the 
trustees  of  this  school  district  to  subscribe 
for  your  magazine,  and  also  express  a  desire 
to  further  continue  the  correspondence  on 
the  subject,  is  received.  In  reply  I  have 
to  say  I  am  heartily  in  sympathy,  and  am 
eagerly  anxious  to  continue  a  correspond- 
ence that  cannot  fail  to  be  interesting  and 
instructive.  I  have  got  a  new  style  of 
pen,  wholly  glass ;  its  point  is  fairly  tingling 
with  eagerness  to  jot  down  the  ideas  that 
are  throbbing  in  my  brain  on  that  subject. 
You  are  evidently  laboring  under  a  mis- 
apprehension of  the  condition  of  affairs  in 
this  school  when  you  refer  to  us  as  strug- 
gling along  without  your  magazine  in  our 
school  library.  My  dear  Sirs,  let  me  inform 
you  that  we  are  not  struggling  along;  we 
are  gliding  along  on  the  smooth  and  placid 
surface  of  a  prosperity  that  may  be  described 
as  follows  :  the  trustees  are  doing  their  duty 


138        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

to  the  best  of  their  ability,  guided  by  a  fair 
amount  of  intelligence.  Our  teachers,  two 
young  ladies,  are  efficient  in  industry  and 
ability ;  in  fact,  they  are  gems,  physically, 
socially,  intellectually,  and  professionally. 
Our  pupils  are  bright,  healthy,  and  studi- 
ous. The  patrons  of  the  school  are  happy 
and  contented,  believing  the  education  of 
their  offspring  is  being  attended  to  honestly, 
intelligently,  and  well.  This  is  the  condition 
of  affairs  in  this  school. 

"  Now  hold  down  your  ear ;  I  want  to 
whisper  to  you  the  main  reason  why  we 
do  not  take  your  magazine.  There  are  so 
many  attractive  features  about  it  that  we 
are  sure  the  pupils  would  be  so  fascinated 
with  it  that  they  would  neglect  their  studies. 
Those  attractive  features  would  also  tend 
to  distract  the  teachers'  attention  from  their 
duties. 

"  All  the  trustees  would  like  to  take  your 
magazine,  but  we  have  only  time  from  our 
farm  duties  (we  are  all  farmers)  to  read  the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        139 

news  in  one  of  the  great  San  Francisco 
dailies  and  our  Bible.  If  we  could  take  the 
time  to  read  your  magazine,  we  are  not  really 
financially  able  to  subscribe  for  it.  This 
financial  embarrassment,  we  hope,  is  only 
temporary.  It  was  brought  about  partly 
by  the  foolish  tinkering  with  the  govern- 
ment finances  by  Representatives  McKinley 
and  Wilson,  and  partly  by  the  criminal 
demonetization  of  silver  by  Senator  Sher- 
man over  twelve  years  ago,  and  the  balance, 
if  anything  more  were  needed,  by.  the  silly 
misapprehension  of  the  people  as  to  the 
correctness  of  President  Cleveland's  action 
in  the  matter  of  the  Bond  Sales.  It  has 
also  been  thought  that  the  *  gold  bugs '  of 
Wall  Street,  N.Y.,  had  something  to  do  with 
the  financial  pressure,  but  I  think  that  is  a 
mistake.  The  gold  bugs  of  New  York  are, 
many  of  them,  members  of  the  church,  and 
all  of  them  good  men,  and  would  not  do  a 
mean  thing  like  that. 

"  Still    wishing  your  magazine    bountiful 


140       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

success,  and  hoping  for  further  correspond- 
ence, I  am  — 

"  P.  S.  Is  your  magazine  in  need  of  an 
editor-in-chief  or  a  managing  editor?  If 
so,  I  think  I  know  a  man  who  could  well 
fill  the  bill.  He  might  lack  a  little  in 
cheek  and  gall  at  first,  but  he  is  quick  to 
catch  on,  and  could  quickly  acquire  a  suffi- 
ciency of  both  if  installed  in  the  position." 

The  Reviewer,  —  "  Cheek,  n.  The  side 
of  the  face  below  the  eye  on  either  side.  — 
Gaul,  n.     France,  anciently  so-called." 

The  Editor  refused  to  join  in  the  laugh, 
and  seemed  relieved  when  the  young  man 
with  the  spectacles  opened  the  door. 

The  Office  Boy.  —  "  Proof !  " 


XII 

"T  HAVE  been  thinking/*  remarked  the 
A  Contributor,  as  he  carefully  dusted  the 
leather  cushion  of  his  accustomed  chair, "  that 
there  are  many  points  in  common  between 
what  we  call  primeval  barbarism  and  nine- 
teenth-century civilization." 

The  Artist  rather  encouraged  the  Con- 
tributor, the  Parson,  and  the  Occasional 
Visitor  in  their  daily  monologues.  They 
did  not  interfere  with  his  work.  But  there 
were  times  when  they  were  deemed  imperti- 
nences by  the  Editor  and  the  Reader. 

"  Yes  ?  "  remarked  the  Artist,  encourag- 
ingly. 

"Yes,"  echoed  the  Contributor,  his  eyes 
glowing  with   a  big  idea. 

Washington's  Birthday  fell  on  Saturday 
this  year,  making  two  holidays  in  succession. 
141 


142        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

The  Contributor  had  taken  advantage  of  the 
summer-like  February  days  to  climb  Mount 
Tamalpais. 

The  Contributor,  —  "  With  Adam  and  Eve, 
or  with  the  islanders  of  the  South  Seas,  life 
is  made  up  of  a  series  of  gorgeous  holidays 

—  legal  holidays  with  the  banks  closed/' 
The  Artist,  —  "  Pardon  me  one    moment 

—  would  you  mind  raising  your  arm  ?  I 
want  to  get  the  position  of  your  fingers  — 
so.     Now,  go  ahead." 

The  Poet,  — 

**  If  all  the  year  were  playing  holidays. 
To  sport  would  be  as  tedious  as  to  work.** 

The  Contributor,  —  "  As  we  emerge  from 
barbarism,  life  becomes  serious  and  prosaic, 
and  days  set  apart  for  pure  enjoyment  are 
unknown.  Early  Christianity  made  the 
Sabbath  a  day  of  penance  and  prayer.  As 
civilization  progressed  and  mankind  became 
gentle,  an  excuse  was  found  for  certain  lapses 
from  the  rigid  rules  of  the  fathers.  The 
Puritans  would  not  celebrate  their  first  goodly 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        143 

crops  and  their  peace  with  the  Indians  with 
ungodly  Olympian  games.  They  were  not 
fully  civilized.  They  appointed  a  day  of 
solemn,  mirthless  feasting.  It  was  a  holiday, 
nevertheless.  It  was  a  step  in  the  right 
direction,  one  that  made  Thanksgiving  foot- 
ball possible  two  hundred  years  later.  I 
thought  it  all  out  as  I  sat  on  the  top  of 
Tamalpais  and  looked  through  the  golden 
mists  across  the  Golden  Gate  toward  the 
great  city  that  was  being  glad  that  George 
Washington  lived,  if  for  no  other  reason 
than   that  he  gave  it  another  holiday." 

The  Artist, —  "You  can  lower  your  arm. 
Thanks.  Now  turn  your  head  a  trifle.  I 
want  to  catch  the  curve  of  your  neck  — 
good." 

The  Contributor,  — "  The  fierce  heat  of 
August  and  the  warm  haze  of  September 
that  ripened  the  crop  of  Puritan  corn  called 
forth  one  holiday ;  the  grim,  bleak  forests  of 
Valley  Forge  and  the  blood  of  half-starved 
patriots  at  Saratoga  and  Yorktown  gave  birth 


144       ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

to  another.  Thanksgiving,  Fourth  of  July, 
Washington's  Birthday,  Christmas,  New 
Year,  Easter,  Labor  Day,  —  all  marked  the 
advance  of  the  race  toward  the  millennium, 
or,  if  you  choose,  denote  a  relapse  for  a  few 
brief  hours  into  the  life  when  man  lived  not 
by  the  sweat  of  his  brow." 

The  Occasional  Visitor,  —  "  You  neglect  to 
include  the  Bohemian  High  Jinks  season  in 
the  redwoods.  Ah  !  those  glorious  holidays 
in  Camp  Bohemia  among  the  vast  red  mon- 
archs,  where  men  become  boys,  and  the  banker 
unbends  to  his  humblest  debtor.  It  would 
be  well  if  all  men  for  a  little  space  could  'take 
to  the  woods*  as  we  Bohemians  do,  and  know 
the  delights  of  getting  close  to  nature  and  to 
the  hearts  of  our  fellows.  Yet  it  may  be 
possible  that  it  needs  trees  three  hundred 
feet  high  and  eighteen  feet  in  diameter,  and 
many  of  them,  to  house  four  hundred  men 
for  a  fortnight.  And  such  perfect  days, 
when  streamers  of  light  fresco  and  enamel 
the  redwoods'  leafy  roof,  or  when   the  fog 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        145 

creeps  in  from  the  Pacific  and  fills  all  the 
higher  arches  with  a   clinging,  fleecy  mist 
like  clouds  of  incense.     Ah  me,  ah  me !  *' 
The  Poet.  — 

"  Who  first  invented  work,  and  bound  the  free 
And  holiday-rejoicing  spirit  down  ? ' ' 

The  Contributor,  —  "  No  one  ever  accused 
me  of  being  an  Anglomaniac,  but  I  would 
that  we  took  in  exchange  for  that  slice  of 
Venezuela  that  Britain  covets  her  Bank 
Holidays,  and  shut  our  banks  on  Easter 
Monday,  Monday  in  Whitsun  week,  first 
Monday  in  August,  Good  Friday,  and 
first  Monday  in  May.  Who  would  be  the 
loser?  Not  the  laborer,  who  dons  his 
Sunday  best,  takes  his  care-worn  helpmate 
and  family  of  half-grown  children  off  the 
streets  out  on  the  warm  sands  below  the 
Cliff  House,  or  among  the  roses  and  green 
things  of  Golden  Gate  Park.  The  sunshine 
that  never  enters  their  damp,  cheerless  alley 
finds  its  ways  into  his  heart,  and  he  renews 


146        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

his  honeymoon  and  gets  in  touch  with  the 
hunger  in  his  little  ones*  lives.  His  work 
the  next  day  means  something.  He  has 
resolved  that  Tommy  and  Mary  shall  have 
more  holidays  than  have  fallen  to  his  bare 
lot.  Not  the  Banker,  who  discovers  that 
there  is  other  music  in  life  that  is  as  sweet 
to  his  ears  as  the  music  of  the  gold  that 
pours  over  his  counter. 

"  The  Parson  agrees  that  the  Sabbath  is 
a  day  of  rest,  pure  and  simple,  and  not  a 
day  of  self-mortification.  I  have  had  two 
glorious  holidays,  Washington's  Birthday 
and  Sunday.  I  thank  the  Bible  and  the 
statute  book  for  them,  and  now  I  am  ready 
and  willing  to  go  to  work." 

The  Reader,  —  "Then,  if  the  Artist  has 
finished  with  your  neck,  possibly  you  would 
not  object  to  holding  copy  for  an  hour 
or  so." 

The  Contributor  ignored  the  invitation, 
and  we  fell  to  thinking  of  the  holidays  of 
long  ago — of  the  chain  of  fadeless  Satur- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        147 

days  that  began  with  our  first  pants  and 
ended  on  the  very  threshold  of  manhood. 
It  is  too  bad  that  the  Saturday  holiday 
cannot  go  on  through  life.  I  am  sure  the 
longevity  of  the  human  race  would  benefit 
by  it.  Five  days  a  week  are  enough  for  the 
schools,  why  should  not  they  be  enough 
for  the   banks? 

Possibly  it  was  the  incense  of  the  winter 
oranges  that  floated  into  the  open  window 
from  the  wagon  below  that  brought  back 
the  perfume  of  those  autumn  holidays  in 
blackberrying  time.  Just  for  a  moment  I 
grasped  the  taste  of  the  almost  forgotten 
fruit  that  grew  so  luscious  among  the  black- 
ened logs  under  the  scarlet  sumachs.  We 
were  small  epicures,  every  one  of  us.  The 
ordinary  berries  were  put  in  our  patent  pails, 
but  the  big  ones,  —  large  as  thimbles  and 
sweet  and  watery  as  melons,  —  they  were 
our  reward.  We  knew  the  art  of  eating 
them,  —  little  end  first,  slowly,  the  lips 
tightly  pressed  together,  the  rich  wine,  cool 


148        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

and    pure,  slipping    regretfully    down    our 
throats. 

The  Contributor's  lips  trembled  reminis- 
cently  as  I  rehearsed  it  all. 

Back  and  above  the  grand,  paternal  home- 
stead towered  the  "  Pinnacle,"  its  dome- 
shorn  trees  only  protected  from  sun  and 
rain  by  a  stunted  growth  of  sumach  and 
beech.  Just  below  its  summit,  on  the 
further  side,  in  a  "  slashing  "  through  which 
the  fire  had  swept  years  before,  grew  the 
biggest  and  sweetest  berries  in  all  Inde- 
pendence Township. 

We  did  not  start  until  the  morning  sun 
had  absorbed  the  heavy  dews,  for  our  ging- 
ham roundabouts  were  thin,  and  our  feet 
bare,  and  berrying  time  only  lacked  a  few 
weeks  of  nutting  time  and  the  frosts. 

With  shouts  and  hellos  we  were  up  the 
steep  hill,  charging  the  dozy  cattle  from 
their  nests  and  warming  our  blue  toes  where 
they  had  slept.     The  little  valley,  with  its 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        149 

shimmering  creek,  and  Whitesville  lay  di- 
rectly below,  and  Uncle  Tob's  mill  pond, 
whose  fringe  of  willow  and  beech  cast  reflec- 
tions like  the  scrawls  in  our  Spencerian  copy 
books.  For  a  moment  we  rested  to  catch 
our  breaths,  then  to  loosen  a  great  moss- 
coated  bowlder  and  send  it  down  through 
log  fence  and  brush  heap  into  the  lawnlike 
meadow,  to  dull  some  unfortunate*s  scythe. 
The  Pinnacle  did  not  quite  reach  the  sky, 
but  it  came  nearer  to  it,  as  its  memory 
holds,  than  Diablo  or  Tamalpais. 

Into  the  wild,  lonesome  patches  of  wind- 
fall and  fallow  we  disappeared.  The  briers 
reached  above  our  heads,  and  their  gray- 
green  thorns  found  the  very  spot  where  our 
tanned  legs  left  our  short  pants.  There 
were  paths  in  and  about  the  ebony  black 
logs  that  the  cows  had  followed  since  the 
great  fire  when  grandfather  had  singed  his 
hair  close  to  his  head  in  a  vain  fight  to  save 
his  buckwheat  in  the  "  back  lot."  They 
were    mysterious,    winding    paths,    matted 


150        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

deep  with  ash-gray  leaves,  and  they  led 
down  toward  the  sugar-bush.  When  our 
pails  were  full,  —  and  it  was  always  a  sur- 
prise how  they  got  so,  —  we  would  follow 
the  paths.  Sometimes  I  was  De  Soto,  or 
again  Jack  was  Hawk  Eye.  "  Hist !  "  — 
Hawk  Eye  would  pause  in  his  tracks  with 
head  lowered  and  finger  raised.  A  par- 
tridge was  drumming  on  a  log :  "  It  is  a 
vile  Huron  !     Look  to  your  priming." 

Among  the  resinous  needles  under  a 
blasted  pine  we  ate  our  noon-day  lunch. 
The  shadow  lay  close  to  the  foot  of  the 
pine,  so  we  knew  it  was  time.  As  we 
munched  the  thick  slices  of  salt- rising  bread 
heavily  crusted  with  shaven  maple-sugar, 
we  built  castles  in  Spain  —  castles  of  which 
we  were  never  to  possess  the  title-deeds,  but 
castles  that  were  filled  with  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions that  had  their  own  silent  influence  in 
shaping  our  young  lives.  A  gray  squirrel  ran 
down  the  limb  of  a  white  birch  and  marked 
with  bright,  greedy  eyes  the  spot  where  each 
crumb  fell. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        151 

"When  I  get  to  be  a  man/'  said  Jack, 
as  he  softly  answered  the  call  of  a  catbird. 

Such  was  our  dreaming.  The  world  has 
been  the  loser  because  of  the  impossibility 
of  his  not  being  able  to  fulfil  that  day- 
dream. Somehow  I  always  picture  him  as 
he  would  be,  and  not  as  he  is.  It  is  the 
hoHday  —  free  from  care  or  thought  —  that 
brings  out  the  beauty  and  best  in  man. 

So  the  short  autumn  day  passed.  The 
hot  sun  overhead  only  made  itself  known 
by  a  few  meshlike  streamers  that  reached 
the  leaves  at  our  feet.  Then,  as  it  lost 
itself  below  the  Pinnacle  far  down  the  valley 
of  the  Cryder,  we  followed  the  lengthening 
shadows  along  the  mountain  side,  driving 
the  cows  with  us  as  we  went.  Our  shrill, 
happy  "  Whey,  Boss,"  and  "  Coe,  Boss," 
woke  the  echoes  across  the  pastures  in  the 
darkening  "  drafts  "  beyond. 

The  Parson.  —  "I  feel  that  1  am  equal  to 
as  many  holidays  as  the  law  permits;  but 


152        As  Talked  in  the  Sancttim 

as  a  public  man  I  am  not  allowed  to  spend 
them  as  I  choose.  I  am  willing  to  have 
the  Fourth  of  July  set  apart  as  a  distinct 
political  holiday,  —  with  harangues,  powder, 
and  brass  bands ;  with  Union  League  and 
Iroquois  Club  banquets  at  night;  with  noise 
and  fireworks,  —  but  I  do  object  to  having 
every  other  legal  holiday  devoted  to  the 
same  object.  Why  not  hold  Washington's 
Birthday  sacred  to  his  memory  ?  Make  it 
the  school  children's  holiday,  and  for  once 
put  aside  all  political  antagonisms  and  class 
wars.  Washington  was  neither  a  Repub- 
lican, Democrat,  nor  Populist;  he  did  not 
belong  to  the  A.  P.  A.'s  or  the  Y.  M.  I.'s. 
He  stands  as  the  greatest  moral  memory  in 
the  repubHc,  the  conscience  of  the  American 
people.  If  we  are  to  have  parades,  let  them 
be  devoid  of  "Little  Red  Schoolhouses'* 
and  rotten  egg  throwing.  Let  them  be 
sweet,  quiet  reminders  of  the  noble  Father 
of  the  whole  country." 

The  Office  Boy  had  been  listening.     He 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        153 

took  off  his  spectacles  and  dusted  them 
carefully. 

The  Office  Boy.  — "  Please,  sir,  my  cousin 
is  visiting  me  from  San  Luis.  May  1  have 
a  holiday  to-morrow  ?  We  want  to  go  to  a 
picnic  in  the  redwoods  at  Mill  Valley." 

The  Office  Boy's  petition  was  timely,  and 
it  was  granted  without  a  dissenting  voice. 

The  Office  Boy.  —  "  Proof !  " 


XIII 

THERE  are  certain  pat  sayings — axioms 
if  you  please  —  that  are  forever  staring 
one  in  the  face,  meeting  you  at  every  cross- 
road, looming  up  like  a  pillar  of  fire  by 
night  and  a  pillar  of  cloud  by  day.  They 
are  sanctified  by  age  —  so  very,  very  hoary 
that  their  white  hairs  command  your  rever- 
ence outwardly,  even  while  your  whole  mind 
and  soul  revolts.  Only  personal  experience 
will  convince  the  scoffer  of  their  honesty. 
The  Sanctum,  from  a  purely  worldly  point 
of  view,  is  not  a  success.  It  does  not  con- 
tain a  rich  member.  So  when  one  of  the 
directors  or  stockholders  in  the  Company 
—  that  is,  of  the  Publishing  Company  — 
solemnly  assures  us  that  riches  do  not  bring 
happiness,  we  listen  respectfully  and  as  re- 
spectfully   doubt    him.     We   are    like    the 

»54 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        155 

Scotchman  —  I  am  not  sure  but  I  have 
used  this  simile  before  —  who  was  willing 
to  be  convinced,  but  would  like  to  see  the 
man  that  could  convince  him. 

If  a  man  cannot  be  happy  with  the  means 
to  supply  every  bodily,  moral,  and  mental 
want  then,  we  maintain,  there  is  something 
wrong  with  the  man. 

There  was  a  romantic  little  story  running 
through  the  press  that  Mr.  Huntington 
said,  as  his  palatial  private  car  drew  up  to 
the  charming  station  at  Santa  Rosa,  —  "I 
would  be  willing  to  give  up  all  my  millions 
and  be  a  brakeman  on  one  of  my  own 
freight  trains,  if  I  could  have  my  youth  and 
eat  my  lunch  from  my  tin  pail  on  the  shady 
side  of  this  little  depot,  and  watch  the  red- 
cheeked,  sunny-haired  maidens  of  Santa 
Rosa  come  out,  day  after  day,  to  see  the 
trains  pull  in.** 

We  all  have  these  fugitive  wishes  —  they 
are  idyllic  and  very  creditable,  but  they  are 
foolish.     It  is  one  thing  to  be  a  handsome. 


156        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

strong  young  brakemen,  with  a  good  diges- 
tion, among  a  bevy  of  pretty  girls,  and 
quite  another  thing  to  be  a  brakeman,  old 
and  crippled  from  long  service. 

No  doubt  the  railroad  president  looks 
back  with  pleasure  mingled  with  regret  on 
the  days  when  he  was  a  brakeman,  as  Lin- 
coln, surrounded  with  all  the  cares  and 
anxieties  of  a  great  civil  war,  may  have 
longed  with  a  genuine  longing  for  the  little 
country  law  office  in  the  quiet  Illinois  town. 

It  is  to  be  deplored  that  none  of  us  have 
ever  had  actual  experience  with  riches.  We 
all  have  our  day-dreams,  even  now,  of  what 
we  would  do  in  case  we  were  Hunting- 
ton, Gould,  or  Vanderbilt ;  how  we  would 
make  ourselves  happy  in  making  others 
happy ;  and  we  are  in  a  continual  state  of 
surprise  that  our  rich  friends  do  not  take 
kindly  to  our  crafty  suggestions.  It  is  so 
easy  for  one  of  them  to  write  his  check  and 
make  so  many  people  happy,  and  at  the 
same  time  do  so  much  good,  that  we  are 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        157 

amazed  that  he  does  not  do  it.  It  is  use- 
less to  specify  here  our  wishes ;  but  if  any 
of  our  wealthy  readers  are  in  want  of  our 
advice,  it  is  as  free  as  water. 

A  philosopher  is  simply  a  person  who 
observes,  draws  conclusions,  and  puts  his 
conclusions  down  in  intelligent  form.  The 
Parson  and  the  Contributor  are  not  young, 
their  minds  are  stored  with  more  than  a  half 
century  of  experiences,  but  if  you  listen  to 
their  genial  Sanctum  talk  day  after  day,  the 
following  thought  takes  shape  :  — 

How  years  of  work  and  struggle  and 
great  events  are  forgotten,  and  certain  mo- 
ments and  days,  that  seem  of  no  significance 
or  importance,  cling  like  life  itself  to  the 
memory.  A  commonplace  saying,  an  ordi- 
nary action,  or  a  trivial  happening  remains, 
when  the  memory  of  things,  seemingly  of 
the  greatest  moment,  fades  away. 

The  Parson  never  talks  of  his  daring 
charge  at  Antietam,  or  of  the  time  he 
perilled  his   life  to  rescue  a  boat  load  of 


158        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

picnickers  in  Raccoon  Straits  —  even  an 
old  comrade's  praise  does  not  seem  to  spur 
his  memory.  A  campfire  story  or  a  boy- 
hood prank  remains  as  vivid  in  his  mind 
as  the  day  when  it  took  place. 

Here  is  the  opportunity  for  the  philoso- 
pher. He  asks  himself  the  why  of  it  all. 
It  is  a  universal  experience.  Then  there 
must  be  a  reason.  Was  the  campfire  story 
or  the  boyhood  prank  a  turning-point  in  the 
Parson's  career  ?  Unknown  to  him,  did  it 
have  some  great  and  lasting  influence  on  his 
life  ?  Do  we  not  have  crises  in  our  lives 
that  we  do  not  recognize  ? 

**  There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men  ;  " 

will  the  sage  please  point  out  the  hour  of 
high  tide  ? 

Shakspere  was  no  doubt  a  philosopher, 
but  he  left  no  chart  whereby  you  or  I  can 
recognize  these  supreme  moments.  Conse- 
quently, as  an  amateur  philosopher,  I  am 
inclined  to  assert  that  there  is  something 
within  us  that  recognizes  and  treasures  the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        159 

memory  of  the  tide-times  of  our  life,  even 
when  our  reason  and  senses  pass  them  by. 
We  entertain  many  an  angel  unawares,  as 
we  refuse  bread  to  many  a  deserving  beggar. 

The  Typewriter,  —  "  There  is  a  party  out 
here  that  will  not  leave  until  he  sees  the 
Editor.  He  has  discontinued  his  subscrip- 
tion and  has  his  reasons  for  so  doing  written 
out.  He  wishes  to  read  them  to  some  one 
in  authority." 

The  Reader,  —  "  Poetry  or  prose  ? " 

The  Ex-Subscriber,  —  "  Excuse  me,  gentle- 
men, for  intruding  on  your  valuable  time 
and  interrupting  your  puerile  drivel,  but  I 
want  you  to  understand  that  I  am  one  of 
the  original  subscribers  to  this  magazine. 
I  am  no  chicken,  if  my  hair  is  long.  You 
may  have  seen  my  letters  signed  *  Veritas  * 
in  the  Guinda  Populist  ?  " 

The  Reader  respectfully  removed  his  hat. 

The  Ex-Subscriber,  —  "Do  you  follow  me? 
Good !  Now  what  I  pick  on  is  this.  You 
don't   abuse  the   railroad.     You   say  noth- 


i6o        As  Talked  in  the  Sane  htm 

ing.  You  go  along  as  though  it  was  a  great 
and  good  institution,  like  the  corner  grocery 
and  the  primary.  You  take  no  part  in  such 
burning  questions  of  the  day  as  whether  the 
Examiner  did  or  did  not  sell  its  protection 
for  one  thousand  dollars  a  month.  What 
we  want  up  in  the  country  is  more  vim, 
and  backbone,  and  personalities.  Show  up 
the  iniquities  of  the  rich,  and  so  help  the 
poor.  We  can  live  longer  and  enjoy  better 
health  if  we  know  that  the  predatory  rich 
are  not  sleeping  comfortably  between  their 
two  feather  ticks.  Down  with  the  railroads ! 
Why,  sir !  last  Christmas  they  refused  me  a 
pass  back  to  my  childhood  home  in  Vermont. 
To  me,  who  came  to  this  country  before  rail- 
roads were  thought  of!  The  railroad  is  a 
tyrant,  and  California  is  the  last  of  the  slave 
States.  Do  you  hear  me  ?  Take  my  name 
off  your  books.     I  am  one  of  the  people." 

The  Manager,  —  "  Certainly.  There  is 
four  years  due  —  will  you  pay  now  ?  " 

The  Ex-Subscriber.— ''"P^yl  Never!   Col- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        i6i 

lect  it  of  Huntington  and  Crocker.  You 
juggernaut ! " 

The  Manager.  —  "  Thanks.  We  prefer 
to  collect  it  from  your  estate  after  you  have 
talked  yourself  to  death." 

The  Contributor.  —  "I  have  long  wanted 
to  meet  'Veritas.'  Since  my  boyhood  days 
I  have  read  his  scholarly  essays  on  the  *  Want 
of  a  New  Sewer  on  M  Street/  and  '  An  Ap- 
peal to  the  Self-respecting  Citizens  of  the 
Eighth  Ward.*  He  is  catholic  in  his  choice 
of  mediums.  The  Whitesville  News  and 
the  New  York  Tribune  are  honored  alike 
with  his  brilliant  pyrotechnics.  His  com- 
munications to  the  editor  bristle  with  quota- 
tions from  the  orators  and  poets  of  the 
Fourth  Reader.  With  Wendell  Phillips  he 
exclaims,  'Revolutions  are  not  made;  they 
come/  and  with  Daniel  Webster,  '  Let  our 
object  be  our  country,  our  whole  country, 
and  nothing  but  our  country.'  He  is  first 
cousin  to  Old  Subscriber,  Taxpayer,  Old 
Settler,  Pioneer,  *49-er,   and    Vox   Populi. 


1 62        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

He  is  a  brother  of  Pro  Bono  Publico.  His 
rhetoric  is  as  picturesque  as  his  grammar  is 
original.  He  fears  neither  libel  suits  nor 
public  opinion.  From  the  sunny  side  of 
the  corner  grocery  he  formulates  State  con- 
stitutions and  regulates  family  jars.  *  Veritas  * 
is  the  friend  of  the  poor,  excepting  his  own, 
and  the  advocate  of  the  other  people*s  down- 
trodden. He  is  as  old  as  the  printing-press 
and  as  fresh  as  a  spring  poem.  To  have 
met  a  modest,  self-confessed  *  Veritas '  is 
better  than  to  have  been  received  by  the 
Queen.  Would  that  the  Sanctum  group 
could  make  him  one  of  them.** 

The  Manager.  —  "I  have  often  thought  I 
would  take  up  philosophy  as  a  profession, 
but  I  never  could  make  a  beginning.  Now 
there  was  the  time  the  Contributor,  Tim 
O'Brien,  and  myself  salted  that  little 
woman's  mine  at  Smartsville.  Our  hearts 
were  all  in  the  right  place,  but  our  brains 
were  in  a  bog.     The  Parson  was  saying  that 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        163 

no  good  action  was  ever  done  that  some  one 
was  not  the  better  for  it.  But,  whoever 
received  the  benefit  in  this  case,  I  know  that 
the  Contributor  suffered,  for  the  laugh  the 
boys  had  on  him  beat  him  for  judge  in 
Stanislaus  County." 

The  Artist, — "But  he  got  the  title  of 
Judge,  if  he  did  lose  the  office." 

The  Manager,  —  "Talk  about  trivial  things 
being  impressed  on  your  memory.  I  can 
see  it  all  as  though  it  happened  but  yester- 
day, while  I  cannot  even  remember  the  fee 
I  paid  the  minister  that  married  me.  One 
hot  summer  day,  back  in  the  fifties,  a  big, 
strapping  fellow,  with  as  dainty  a  bit  of  a 
wife  as  a  man  ever  clapped  eyes  on,  clam- 
bered out  of  the  old  Marysville  coach  at 
Smartsville  and  moved  into  a  little  cabin 
over  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  The  very  next 
morning  we  saw  her  sitting  in  her  cabin  door 
with  her  big  blue  eyes  swimming  with  tears. 
Some  of  the  boys  thought  the  husband  had 
been  beating   her,  and  were   for   divorcing 


164        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

them  then  and  there.  We  talked  it  over  all 
the  forenoon,  and  in  the  afternoon  the 
little  woman  walked  down  to  the  store  and 
asked  the  storekeeper  where  she  could  stake 
a  claim.  She  was  sobbing  as  if  her  poor 
heart  would  break  as  she  told  him  her  hus- 
band had  been  taken  with  rheumatism  and 
couldn't  move,  and  that  they  didn't  have 
any  money.  She  thought  she  could  do  a 
little  mining  alone  if  she  just  had  a  show. 
We  all  tried  to  give  her  a  little  dust,  but  her 
eyes  snapped  so  they  dried  up  her  tears, 
when  she  thanked  us  and  said  she  was  no 
beggar,  but  could  work  for  a  living. 

"  She  walked  straight  out  of  there  and  over 
to  the  side  hill  and  staked  out  a  claim  on 
a  piece  of  ground  that  was  as  barren  as 
the  top  of  Ararat.  A  man  couldn't  have 
found  color  there  if  he  had  gone  clean 
through  to  China,  but  she  shovelled  away 
with  her  soft  little  hands  that  blistered 
almost  as  soon  as  she  touched  the  handle, 
and  then  cooled  them  in  the  water  while  she. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        165 

washed  the  dirt.  Tim  and  the  rest  of  us 
felt  mighty  sorry  for  the  delicate  little  crea- 
ture, working  away  so  bravely  to  support 
herself  and  her  sick  husband ;  so  —  it  was 
the  Contributor  who  thought  it  all  out  — 
we  slipped  around  that  night  and  salted  her 
claim  pretty  heavy.  The  next  morning  we 
all  sat  in  front  of  the  saloon  and  watched  her 
work  out  her  first  pan  of  dust.  It  netted 
somewhere  about  two  hundred  dollars  in 
coarse  gold,  and  she  felt  so  good  that  she 
fell  right  down  on  her  knees  and  thanked 
the  good  Lord.  We  all  kind  of  choked  and 
wiped  our  eyes,  and  made  a  bee  line  for  the 
bar.  The  little  woman  was  so  happy  and 
worked  away  so  cheerily  all  that  day  that 
the  boys  couldn't  help  giving  her  claim 
another  salting. 

"  The  husband,  a  nice,  patient  kind  of  a 
chap,  kept  sick  for  weeks,  his  noble  little 
wife  kept  digging  and  working  away,  and 
the  Contributor  and  the  rest  of  us  kept  salt- 
ing her  claim,  for  we  couldn't  bear  to  think 


1 66        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

of  her  disappointment  if  we  should  let  it 
peter  out.  Our  own  claims  weren't  paying 
any  too  well,  the  water  was  slow,  and  what 
with  standing  around  and  watching  her  all 
day,  we  made  so  little  that  it  wasn't  very 
long  before  she  had  pretty  nearly  all  the  dust 
in  camp.  Finally,  when  she  found  her  claim 
wasn't  paying  and  her  husband  was  better, 
she  decided  to  take  her  departure.  We  were 
all  mighty  sorry  to  see  her  go ;  for  she  was 
a  bright,  cheery  little  creature,  and  as  pretty 
as  a  picture.  The  sight  of  her  made  us  all 
kind  of  religious,  and  the  Contributor  had 
collected  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of 
two  hundred  dollars  for  a  church.  But  with 
her  went  our  yearning  after  a  parson,  and  by 
a  standing  vote  we  made  her  a  present  of  the 
whole  collection.  During  the  election  it  was 
told  that  the  Contributor  surreptitiously 
added  his  diamond  stud." 

The  Contributor,  —  "  Regarding  which  my 
memory  fails  me." 

The  Manager,  —  "  Our  divinity's  husband 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        167 

took  sick  again  at  Rough  and  Ready,  and 
the  boys  there  salted  her  claim  until  she 
broke  the  camp.  He  took  sick  again  at 
Boston  Ravine,  and  then  over  again  at  Selby 
Flat,  and  I  think  he  carried  that  rheumatism 
into  every  camp  in  the  State  —  and  all  the 
gold  dust  out !  " 

The  Contributor,  — "  Isn*t  it  about  time 
for  the  proof  ?  " 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof ! " 


XIV 

FRANCOIS  VILLON'S  conceited  as- 
sertion, that  "good  talkers  are  only 
found  in  Paris/*  may  be  true.  Still  it  has 
been  remarked  that  certain  members  of  the 
Sanctum  are  more  than  mediocre  conversa- 
tionalists,—  ornaments  to  the  circle,  —  men 
of  mark.  They,  the  talkers,  have  absorbed 
whatever  meed  of  praise  comes  sanctum- 
ward.  If  the  Parson  and  the  Contributor 
are  pointed  out  on  the  street  and  quoted  in 
the  newspapers,  invited  to  banquets,  asked  to 
read  papers  before  learned  societies,  we  feel 
it  is  only  their  due.  Instead  of  showing 
jealousy,  we  are  secretly  elated  at  their  favor. 
Every  member  of  the  circle  fills  his  own 
modest  niche.  The  Editor,  the  Poet,  the 
Reader,  know  that  they  are  just  as  accom- 
plished listeners  as  the  Parson  is  an  accom- 

i68 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        169 

plished  talker.  The  good  listener  does  not 
hold  the  exalted  place  in  polite  society  that 
the  good  talker  does  ;  but,  surely,  he  is  quite 
as  important.  A  man,  we  have  all  agreed, 
is  never  a  perfect  success  as  a  talker  unless 
he  be  a  listener  as  well.  "  Not  to  listen 
is  not  merely  a  want  of  politeness:  it  is  a 
mark  of  disrespect." 

The  Contributor  had  been  airing  his  opin- 
ions on  the  Cuban  question.  The  Reviewer 
had  an  idea,  and  he  struggled  to  clothe  it  in 
imposing  verbiage.  The  Contributor  gazed 
absently  out  of  the  great  south  window 
toward  the  weather  signals  on  the  Mills 
Building.  He  may  have  understood  before- 
hand what  the  Reviewer  was  trying  to  ex- 
press, or  he  may  have  had  the  faculty  of 
listening  while  thinking  of  what  he  meant  to 
reply,  but  it  was  not  long  before  the  Reviewer 
began  to  stutter  and  stumble.  He  closed 
abruptly  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  his 
ideas  disconcerted  and  his  vanity  wounded. 
The  Contributor,  without  noticing  either  the 


lyo        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

unfinished  argument  or  the  broken,  feeble 
finale,  went  on  with  the  thread  of  his  ha- 
rangue as  though  the  Reviewer  had  not 
spoken. 

The  Contributor's  oblivious  rudeness  and 
the  Reviewer's  poorly  concealed  annoyance 
sent  a  smile  around  the  circle. 

The  Artist.  —  "There  is  no  question  but 
that  our  Contributor  is  an  accomplished 
monologist.  Euripides  has  described  him, 
'  He  is  a  talker  and  needs  no  questioning 
before  he  speaks.'  We  all  admire  the  ease 
and  agility  with  which  he  skips  from  the 
cause  of  the  downtrodden  Cubans  to  Reid's 
presidential  chances.  At  the  same  time  he 
is  equally  interesting  on  cathode  ray,  and  the 
Sinai  Gospels.  Yet,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to 
criticise  at  the  same  moment,  I  would  say 
that  he  shares  with  all  egotists  their  radi- 
cal defect — polite  inattention  to  the  conver- 
sation of  their  peers.  I  want  to  have  this 
matter  out  once  for  all  with  the  Contributor, 
for  I  have  long  been  a  silent  sufferer  from 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        171 

his  courteous  condescension.  It  should  not 
be  necessary  for  me  always  to  call  him  to 
earth  with  a  question.  He  carries  his  habit 
too  far.  When  he  talks,  I  do  more  than 
merely  lend  him  a  semiconscious  ear,  I  give 
him  freely  both  my  ears  and  my  eyes.  I  am 
willing  to  put  up  with  this  form  of  imperti- 
nence from  my  Senator,  my  creditor,  or  the 
man  of  whom  I  am  to  ask  a  favor ;  but  from 
the  circle  —  never!  I  can  imagine  only  one 
thing  more  stupid  than  a  dinner  party  of 
brilliant  monologists,  —  a  dinner  party  of 
listeners  only.  As  Balzac  says,  '  Nothing 
brings  more  profit  in  the  commerce  of  society 
than  the  small  change  of  attention.'  " 

The  Contributor,  — "  I  do  not  think  I  can 
be  accused  of  being  inattentive  to  the  Artist's 
uncalled-for  philippic.  I  am  too  old  to 
change  my  bad  habits,  and  too  proud  to  be 
held  up  as  a  horrible  example.  I  am  willing, 
however,  modestly  to  confess  that  for  some 
time  I  have  been  aware  that  I  am  a  better 
talker  than  listener.     If  I  am  a  poor  listener, 


172       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

it  is  because  I  have  never  received  proper 
encouragement  in  my  youth.  '  The  Art  of 
Conversation/  '  How  to  Become  a  Conver- 
sationalist/ are  familiar  titles  in  every  library. 
The  Conversationalist  is  patted  on  the  back 
in  prose  and  in  verse.  If  for  a  moment  he 
gives  up  his  prerogative  of  being  the  central 
figure,  he  sinks  to  the  dead  level  of  a  bored 
listener  to  some  halting  speaker's  threadbare 
platitudes." 

The  Poet. — "  I  will  vouch  for  the  glorifi- 
cation of  the  talker  in  poetry,  — 

**  *  Form'd  by  thy  converse  happily  to  steer 
From  grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe, 

advised  Pope,  and  Milton  testifies, — 

"  'With  thee  conversing  I  forget  all  time.'  ** 

The  Artist,  — "  Still  I  wish  one  might  say 
of  the  Contributor  as  Sydney  Smith  said  of 
Macaulay,  '  He  has  -occasional  flashes  of 
silence,  that  make  his  conversation  perfectly 
delightful.'  " 

The  Typewriter,  —  "  There  is  a  gentleman 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum^'  i']2> 

out  here  that  would  like  to  have  a  short  con- 
versazione with  the  Artist.  He  complains 
that  he  had  a  story  in  the  March  number, 
and  that  the  Artist  put  flowing  Dundrearies 
on  his  clean-shaven  hero/* 

The  Reader,  — "  No  doubt  the  whiskers 
had  plenty  of  time  to  grow  while  the  tale  was 
awaiting  publication." 

The  Parson,  —  "It  seems  to  me  that  a  read- 
able article  might  be  written  on  the  genesis 
of  a  good  listener.  Success  in  Hfe,  nine  times 
out  of  ten,  makes  a  good  talker.  The  suc- 
cessful man  is  seldom  a  listener.  The 
listener  is  the  courtier ;  for  the  poor  man 
can  win  more  by  intelligent  attention  than 
by  the  brilliancy  of  his  conversation.  The 
unsuccessful  man  who  talks  well  is  put  down 
as  unpractical,  and  dismissed  with  a  shrug 
of  the  shoulders.  His  mistake  is  that  he  as- 
sumes that  people  wili  listen  to  ideas  without 
a  mental  inventory  of  the  speaker.  The 
rich  man  should  be  respectfully  listened  to 
for  what  he  is  and  not  for  what   he   says. 


174        ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Remember  this,  and    many   things    will    be 
forgiven  you,  even  your  failures  in  life." 

The  Contributor,  —  "  The  Parson  reminds 
me  of  the  man  who  for  two  hours  talked 
steadily  to  a  deaf  man  on  the  Silver  Question, 
and  left,  remarking  that  he,  the  deaf  man, 
was  the  most  entertaining  conversationalist 
he  ever  met." 

The  Reader,  —  "I  have  run  across  the 
titles  of  a  lot  of  curious  old  books  of 
Cromwell's  time.  They  rival  our  modern 
appellations  of  '  The  Tinted  Venus,*  '  The 
Gilded  Sin,'  and  '  The  Heavenly  Twins.' 
Listen :  '  The  Christian  Sodality ;  or,  Catho- 
lic Hive  of  Bees,  sucking  the  Honey  of  the 
Churches'  Prayer  from  the  Blossoms  of  the 
World  of  God,  Blowne  out  of  the  Epistles 
and  Gospels  of  the  Divine  Service  through- 
out the  Yeare,  collected  by  the  Puny  Bee 
of  All  the  Hive,  not  worthy  to  be  named 
otherwise  than  by  these  Elements  of  his 
Name,  F.  P.'     *  y/  Fan  to  drive  away  Flies : 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        175 

a  Theological  Treatise  on  Purgatory/  ^  A 
Most  Delectable  Sweet  Perfumed  Nosegay  for 
God*s  Saints  to  Smell  at/  ^A  Reaping- 
hook^  well  tempered,  for  the  Stubborn  Ears 
of  the  coming  Crop ;  or,  Biscuit  baked  in 
the  Oven  of  Charity,  carefully  conserved 
for  the  Chickens  of  the  Church,  the 
Sparrows  of  the  Spirit,  and  the  Sweet 
Swallows  of  Salvation/  ^  Eggs  of  Charity ^ 
layed  by  the  Chickens  of  the  Covenant, 
and  boiled  with  the  Water  of  Divine 
Love.  Take  Ye  and  Eat/  '  Hooks  and 
Eyes  for  Believers'  Breeches'  ^  High-heeled 
Shoes  for  Dwarfs  in  Holiness/  '  The  Spir^ 
itual  Mustard  Pot^  to  make  the  Soul  sneeze 
with  Devotion/  ** 

The  Artist,  — "  No  doubt  the  publica- 
tions of  the  aboriginal  Salvation  Army/* 

The  Reader.  —  "As  I  went  through  a  list 
of  these  archaic  book  captions,  the  thought 
came  to  me  that  I  might  bring  some  fame 
to  the  circle  by  indicting  a  bibelot  on 
*  The  Fashion  in  Book  Titles,  —  How  They 


176        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Change.'  There  is  a  fashion  in  the  nam- 
ing of  new  books,  that  is,  novels.  In 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  Levers's  day  the 
name  of  the  hero  generally  gave  his  name 
to  the  volume.  Fenimore  Cooper,  Victor 
Hugo,  Dumas,  and  Walter  Scott  affected 
descriptive  titles,  while  Charles  Reade  and 
Wilkie  Collins  went  in  for  mystery.  To- 
day, the  title  is  more  often  chosen  without 
regard  to  anything  between  covers,  like 
Artemus  Ward's  celebrated  lecture  on  '  The 
Babes  in  the  Wood,*  —  for  example,  *  Ships 
that  Pass  in  the  Night,'  —  or,  for  pure  sensa- 
tionalism, note  '  An  Amazing  Marriage,'  '  A 
Sawdust  Doll,'  'Two  Women  and  a  Fool,' 
*  Three  Men  in  a  Boat.'  However,  I  only 
intend  to  outline  and  patent  my  idea  now. 
Later — who  can  tell?  —  it  may  appear  in 
sweet-smelling  vellum,  heralded  by  a  home- 
for-the-feeble-minded  poster  by  Beardsley. 
It  is  thus  great  thoughts  have  their  birth." 

"  It  is  written,"  asserted  the  Contributor, 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        177 

with  a  majestic  wave  of  the  hand,  "  that 
Cuba  shall  be  free.  Fashions  in  clothes 
change,  so  they  must  in  governments.  The 
powdered  wig,  knee  breeches,  and  high 
red-heeled  shoes  have  gone  the  way  of  the 
divine  right  of  kings.  Debased,  broken- 
spirited  servitude  is  less  noisy  than  ram- 
pant, hot-headed  liberty ;  but  as  for  me  I 
prefer  my  champagne  in  my  glass  to  having 
it  well  corked  and  secured  in  bottles.  It 
may  spoil  the  table  linen  at  first,  but  it  will 
soon  settle  and  be  fit  to  drink.  The 
Cubans  have  served  their  apprenticeship. 
Four  hundred  years  of  unrequited  labor 
pays  any  debt  that  may  be  owing  to  their 
progenitors.  It  is  not  for  us  to  criticise 
their  nationality  or  color.  They  are  what 
their  protecting  Mother  Spain  has  made 
them.  Their  excesses  in  the  struggle  for 
liberty  are  nothing  in  comparison  to  the 
outrages  of  the  chivalrous  officers  of  the 
land  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  I  want  to 
see  Cuba  free  only  because  I  believe  it  is 


lyS        As  Talked  in  the  Smictum 

right  that  she  should  be.  I  do  not  beHeve 
that  any  power  on  earth  has  the  legal  or 
moral  right  to  fasten  on  the  necks  of  a  mill- 
ion and  a  half  of  human  beings  the  galling 
yoke  of  a  debt  that  is  monstrous  in  its  size 
and  in  its  future  consequences.  Spain  is 
fighting,  not  because  she  really  cares  to  hold 
Cuba,  but  because  she  wants  to  compel  her 
to  pay  to  her  creditors  three  hundred  mill- 
ion dollars  —  a  sum  of  money  ten  times  the 
size  of  the  debt  that  the  great  State  of  Vir- 
ginia has  admitted,  time  and  again,  that  she 
was  absolutely  unable  to  meet.  Spain  has 
sent  to  Cuba  within  a  year  one  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  soldiers.  Forty  thousand  of 
them  rot  in  Cuban  soil.  She  is  spending 
one  million  dollars  a  day.  She  is  cooped 
up  in  the  city  of  Havana,  and  yet  she  re- 
fuses to  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  war 
going  on  on  the  island.  Foreign  corre- 
spondents are  refused  passes  to  the  front; 
they  are  not  permitted  on  pain  of  death  to 
visit    the   insurgents'    camp;    and    yet    the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        179 

official  despatches  report  brilliant  Spanish 
victories,  and  claim  that  the  rebels  are  but 
a  handful  of  bandits.  If  Captain-General 
Weyler  is  such  a  genius  and  his  troops  so 
invincible,  it  is  natural  that  he  should  want 
all  the  world  to  know  it.  If  there  is  no 
war  in  Cuba  and  the  Spanish  troops  are  so 
humane  in  their  treatment  of  old  men  and 
women,  why  then  are  the  representatives 
of  our  great  journals  forbidden  to  leave 
Havana?  If  all  these  things  are  true,  Spain 
has  nothing  to  fear  from  American  recogni- 
tion of  the  so-called  belligerents.  It  is  the 
duty  of  every  civilized  power  to  uphold 
civilization.  Because  England  was  deaf  to 
the  cries  of  fifty  thousand  dying  Armenians 
is  no  reason  why  America  should  close  her 
ears  and  eyes  to  Spanish  atrocities  in  this 
hemisphere.  I  should  not  care  if  three- 
fourths  of  the  Cuban  army  were  blacks  in- 
stead of  one-fourth.  I  would  rather  see 
them  free  and  murdering  one  another  than 
being  murdered  by  the  most  Christian  king- 


i8o       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

dom  of  Spain.  One  or  two  generations 
would  teach  them  the  great  lessons  of  free- 
dom. Let  this  country  formally  recognize 
Cuba,  and  the  world  will  recognize  Spain's 
bankruptcy.  It  is  un-American  to  wait 
longer.** 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof!  *' 


XV 

1WAS  reading  the  life  of  one  of  the  great 
ones  of  the  earth,  long  since  gone  before. 
It  was  a  simple,  honest  biography,  one  that 
would  not  do  its  subject  or  its  "  Boswell " 
any  serious  harm.  I  would  not  mention  it 
here  had  I  not  been  forced  to  admire,  in 
spite  of  a  wholly  uncalled-for  prejudice,  the 
marked,  almost  brilliant,  cleverness  displayed 
in  discovering  a  relationship  between  the 
triumphs  of  manhood  and  certain  youthful 
characteristics  or  idiosyncrasies. 

It  was  noted  that  in  this  lawyer-politi- 
cian's youth  he  successfully  organized  a 
boycott  on  the  aged  taffy-man  who  sold 
sundry  home-made  sweets  on  the  sunny 
side  of  the  village  court  house,  who,  profit- 
ing by  an  uncontested  monopoly,  charged  a 
cent  here  and  there  in  excess  of  the  prices 
that  prevailed  during  the  past  generation. 

i8i 


1 82        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

It  was  also  a  matter  of  record  that  in  the 
subject's  tenth  year  he  "  floored "  the  vil- 
lage pettifogger  in  a  debate  at  the  district 
schoolhouse  on  the  question  —  ^^  Resolved^ 
that  city  life  is  preferable  to  country  life/* 
and  there  are  numerous  instances  that  go 
to  show  that  he  was  of  an  accumulative  turn 
of  mind. 

The  biographer  eagerly  deduces  the  fact 
that  his  hero  was  simply  among  men  what 
he  had  been  among  boys  —  a  leader.  His 
mind  contained  a  cog  here  and  there  that 
the  ordinary  mind  lacked.  He  arrived  at 
conclusions  before  his  fellows  had  settled 
on  premises.  In  politics  and  trade,  as  in 
chess  and  fencing,  he  saw  his  moves  far 
ahead,  and  while  others  were  experimenting, 
he  was  simply  following  out  a  clearly  fore- 
seen policy.  I  became  very  much  interested 
in  this  biographical  analysis,  and  it  led  to  a 
discussion  one  day  in  the  Sanctum. 

I  do  not  know  that  anything  worth  record- 
ing was  said,  but  some  ideas  were  put  into' 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        183 

words  that  had  previously  lived  vaguely  in 
the  nebula  of  uncollected  thoughts.  One 
reason  why  the  writer  or  the  orator  achieves 
fame  for  erudition  is,  that  in  his  constant 
delving  for  something  new  to  write  about 
or  to  declaim,  he  unearths,  from  the  mental 
chaos  of  his  brain-tunnels,  naked  truths  that 
only  need  a  new  dress  for  every  one  to 
instantly  recognize  familiar  "  saws  "  in  un- 
familiar garbs.  No  one  is  more  surprised 
at  what  a  drag-net  will  bring  to  light  in  the 
human  mind  than  the  owner  of  the  mind 
himself 

The  Contributor  has  a  pretty  little  theory, 
and  I  think  a  harmless  one,  that  the  Creator 
is  ever  busy  making  minds  for  earthly  bodies. 
The  minds  are  mathematical  mechanisms; 
they  are  not  all  equal  in  workmanship  or 
finish.  Some  are  hurriedly  thrown  together, 
others  only  half  completed,  but  once  in  a 
generation  a  mind  perfect  in  certain  lines 
is  created,  and  then  history  makes  note  of 
a  Napoleon,  a  Newton,  an  Edison.     The 


184       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

theory  is  graceful,  but  it  hardly  calls  for 
respect,  although  the  Contributor  fortifies 
it  forcibly  with  examples  that  prove  he  has 
given  the  matter  some  thought. 

He  says  Stradivarius  and  Guarnerius 
made  one  perfect  violin  to  ten  mediocre 
ones,  that  the  steel  workers  of  Damascus 
turned  out  thousands  of  faulty  swords  to  a 
score  of  imperishable  ones  ;  but,  to  the  Sanc- 
tum, all  these  arguments,  more  or  less  inter- 
esting, proved  quite  a  different  thing  from 
what  they  were  intended,  namely,  that  the 
Contributor  would  have  made  an  excellent 
lawyer.  So  one's  thoughts  fly,  in  spite  of 
all,  from  the  general  to  the  particular,  and 
the  Artist  irrelevantly  inquired  if  the  talker 
believed  in  Woman's  Suffrage.  The  Con- 
tributor ignored  the  interrogation,  and  it 
was  noted  that  the  Artist  had  been  read- 
ing a  four-column  brevier  letter  in  the  Call^ 
signed  by  Susan  B.  Anthony.  He  turned  to 
the  Parson. 

The  Parson,  — "I  will  believe  in  Woman's 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        185 

Suffrage  and  will  vote  for  it  when  the  Par- 
soness  asks  it.  I  have  never  denied  her 
anything  that  it  was  possible  for  me  to 
grant,  but  until  she  request  it,  I  do  not  feel 
inclined  to  do  for  Miss  Anthony  or  Miss 
Shaw  what  might  not  please  my  home. 
When  the  ladies  of  this  country  ask  their 
husbands  to  share  with  them  the  ballot, 
Woman's  Suffrage  will  be  possible ;  but, 
until  that  time,  no  self-respecting  husband 
and  father  will  raise  a  finger  to  enhance  the 
notoriety  of  a  bevy  of  professional  agi- 
tators." 

The  Reviewer, — "Not  being  a  benedict, 
I,  too,  will  take  my  marching  orders  from 
the  Parson's  generalissimo." 

Granting  that  there  was  some  reason  in 
the  biographer's  argument  that  the  acts  of 
our  adolescence  foreshadow  the  career  of 
our  mature  manhood,  I  am  curious  to  know 
how  he  would  account  for  and  apply  to 
my  own  after  life  my  boyhood  passion  for 


1 86        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

making  "  scrap-books/'  If  it  is  a  sign  that  I 
possess  the  accumulating  or  saving  instinct, 
I  would  answer  that  these  are  the  only  things 
I  ever  accumulated.  If  it  shows  that  I  was 
destined  for  any  particular  profession,  I  would 
ask,  why,  then,  do  not  fifty  per  cent  of  those 
who  have  the  scrap-book  mania  choose  the 
same  profession  ? 

However,  it  never  struck  me  as  curious 
until  one  day,  not  long  ago,  I  discovered  that 
I  had  preserved  these  old  books.  Now  I 
wonder  at  them  ;  I  have  not  opened  them 
for  years.  Their  pot-pourri  of  gleanings 
for  the  curious,  curiosities  of  literature, 
words,  facts  and  phrases,  familiar  quota- 
tions, and  melange  of  excerpts  have  done 
me  no  conscious  good,  and  yet  I  have  pre- 
served them.  The  largest  of  these  literary 
graveyards  I  opened.  It  is  an  old  "Agri- 
cultural Report,**  and  emits  a  damp,  aged 
odor.  It  is  as  full  of  memories  as  it  is 
of  gleanings.  The  opening  poem  reads  as 
follows;  — 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        187 

«*  Mary  had  a  little  jam 

She  locked  it  up  to  grow  ; 
And  everywhere  that  Mary  went 
The  key  was  sure  to  go. 

«•  She  lost  it  in  the  grass  one  day 
While  fleeing  from  a  cow  ; 
Her  brother  Johnny  picked  it  up  — 
He  is  an  angel  now.** 

But  as  if  to  testify  that  I  was  not  des- 
tined to  be  a  poet  of  passion,  the  follow- 
ing page  contains  an  editorial  from  the  New 
York  Sun  on  the  "  Distracted  Condition  of 
France/*  followed  by  a  tabulation  of  "  The 
Nation's  Dead.'*  Then  comes  an  article 
that  purports  to  have  appeared  in  a  London 
paper  at  the  time  James  G.  Blaine  visited 
England.     It  begins  :  — 

"  The  Rt.  Hon.  James  G.  Blaine  and  wife  have 
just  arrived  in  this  city.  Mr.  Blaine  is  at  present 
governor-general  of  Maine,  a  province  on  the 
southwestern  coast  of  Lake  Mississippi.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Blaine  is  a  first  cousin  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  William 
F.  Cody,  better  known  as  Buffalo  Bill,  and  is 
expected  to  call  upon  him  to-morrow  to  formu- 


1 88        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

late  governmental  plans  for  action  on  the  reassem- 
bling of  the  American  Senate,  Mr.  Cody  being  a 
Senator  from  the  province  of  Key  West.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Blaine's  military  title  is  major-general.  He 
gained  it  by  gallant  action  on  the  field  at  Look- 
out Mountain,  where  he  commanded  the  Second 
Chicago  Infantry  under  General  Beauregard,  etc." 

This  struck  me  as  eminently  funny  at  the 
time.  I  had  then  never  been  in  England  or 
lived  among  English  people.  I  reread  and 
copied  the  extract;  it  strikes  me  as  sadly 
true,  that  is,  the  spirit  of  it.  I  was  discuss- 
ing American  and  English  magazines  with 
an  Englishwoman  of  whose  opinion  on 
matters  literary  I  have  the  greatest  respect. 
In  a  general  way  I  was  boasting  of  the  supe- 
riority of  American  magazines.  "  Yes,"  she 
assented,  in  that  imperturbable,  politely  pat- 
ronizing way  that  has  become  second  nature 
to  our  English  cousins,  "  there  is  no  doubt  but 
that  your  Atlantic^  Overland^  and  North  Amer- 
ican are  creditable,  but  how  can  you  compare 
them  to  our  Harper  s  and  Century,'*    Neither 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        189 

would  she  believe  me  when  I  assured  her 
that  her  favorites  were  the  very  American 
magazines  of  which  I  was  so  proud,  although 
I  was  sorry  to  admit  that  one  of  them,  like 
many  good  Americans,  affected  English- 
made  clothes  as  soon  as  it  touched  English 
soil.  The  English  know  almost  absolutely 
nothing  of  our  geography.  One  of  our 
California  girls,  who  had  spent  three  years 
in  a  New  York  boarding-school,  was  stay- 
ing with  friends  in  London  before  returning 
to  her  native  State. 

"  Where  do  you  live  ?  "  asked  a  titled 
caller. 

"  California,"  she  replied. 

"  Ah,  and  went  to  school  in  New  York. 
Did  you  go  home  every  night  ? " 

The  Englishwoman  knows  those  parts  of 
our  great  country  where  her  relatives  are  on 
a  ranch,  and  the  Englishman  those  sections 
where  his  surplus  capital  is  invested.  They 
talk  of  Johannesburg,  Rajputana,  Ottawa, 
and    Penang   as    though    they   were    but    a 


iQO        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

step  from  London  Bridge,  but  St.  Louis, 
San  Francisco,  Buenos  Ayres,  and  Havana 
are  somewhere  in  that  great  undiscovered 
"  States,"  and  that  is  enough. 

"  I  have  a  friend  in  the  States,"  remarked 
an  Englishwoman,  who  was  making  polite 
conversation  while  we  were  waiting  for  the 
dining-room  doors  to  open.  "  Possibly 
you  have  met  him.  He  lives  in  —  let  me 
think,  oh,  yes,  how  stupid,  Rio  de  Janeiro." 

English  geographies  and  English  histories 
are  to  blame  for  this  want  of  neighboring 
knowledge  of  our  affairs. 

I  could  not  help  reminding  an  English 
governor  who  was  dilating  on  Britain's  prow- 
ess that  the  "  States "  had  twice  come  off 
fairly  well  in  wars  with  his  great  nation. 

"  Twice,"  he  echoed,  while  a  genuine  knot 
of  amazement  grew  between  his  quiet  blue 
eyes.  "  Oh,  ah  —  you  refer  to  your  Revo- 
lution and  —  yes,  I  fancy  that  Chesapeake 
affair." 

I  found  out  later  that  the  "  Chesapeake  " 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        191 

affair,  an  English  naval  victory,  was  all  his 
school  history  had  taught  his  nation  of  the 
War  of  1812. 

Since  the  death  of  that  charming  fellow 
and  delightful  companion,  who  was  child- 
hood's poet-laureate  —  Eugene  Field  —  the 
story  of  his  celebrated  encounter  with  the 
famous  author  of  "  Robert  Elsmere  "  at  a 
dinner  party  in  London  has  become  the 
property  of  the  newspapers.  When  it  was 
related  to  me  by  one  who  heard  it,  it  was 
known  only  to  the  "  Saints  and  Sinners." 
Field  was  placed  next  to  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward,  who  was  the  bright,  particular  star  of 
the  evening.  She  ignored  the  modest  Ameri- 
can until  the  fifth  course ;  then,  for  the  sake  of 
making  a  show  of  conversation,  she  turned  to 
him  with  the  stereotyped  English  inquiry:  — 

"  Mister  —  Mister  —  " 

"  Field,"  interpolated  her  auditor. 

"  Pardon,  Mister  Field  of  Chicago,  eh  ? 
Do  you  know  this  Doctor  Cronin  (of  Clan- 
Na-Gael  fame)  ? " 


192        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

"  Certainly,  madam,"  replied  Field,  with 
the  most  intelligent  expression  he  could 
assume,  "  we  live  in  adjoining  trees." 

But  to  return  to  the  scrap-book.  I  find 
that  I  have  saved  some  one's  estimate  of 
the  difference  between  the  English  poets. 

"  Chaucer  describes  men  and  things  as 
they  are  ;  Shakspere,  as  they  would  be  under 
the  circumstances  supposed ;  Spenser,  as  we 
would  wish  them  to  be;  Milton,  as  they 
ought  to  be  ;  Byron,  as  they  ought  not  to 
be ;  and  Shelley,  as  they  never  can  be." 

I  often  wonder  if  any  one  else  has  ever 
thought  it  worth  while  to  preserve  the  same 
items  that  I  have.     If  so,  we  are  affinities. 

These  earlier  scrap-books  are  severely 
impersonal.  They  were  made  up  when  the 
compiler's  life  had  not  begun  to  interest 
himself  and  prior  to  that  interesting  period 
when  he  entered  upon  the  record  of  his  own 
comings  and  goings.  At  this  date  it  is 
impossible  to  decide  what  great  merit  cer- 
tain receipts  of  how  to   make   guava  jelly 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        193 

held  for  me.  I  doubt  if  I  had  a  clear  idea 
of  what  a  guava  was.  I  know  I  could  never 
have  hoped  to  see  one.  Neither  can  I 
imagine  why  I  preserved  an  obituary  notice 
of  one  G.  Henry  Snell.  It  must  have  been 
an  example  of  style,  for  I  am  sure  I  never 
knew  any  one  of  the  name.  However,  it 
is  not  my  intention  to  hold  this  old  book 
up  to  scorn.  Scrap-books  will  continue  to 
grow  and  flourish  as  long  as  papers  are 
published  and  good  paste  can  be  made  from 
a  handful  of  wheat  flour  and  a  cup  of  cold 
water. 

The  Office  Boy.—  ''  Proof!  " 


XVI 

IN  reporting  the  Parson's  lecture  before 
"the  Young  Men's  Self-culture  Club," 
one  of  the  morning  papers  charged  him  with 
being  a  transcendentalist.  How  a  beardless 
reporter  had  discovered  such  a  defect  in  the 
good  man's  armor,  when  we  of  the  Sanctum 
had  known  him  for  generations  without  ever 
detecting  it,  set  us  to  thinking.  Like  the 
fish  woman  whom  Curran  called  "an  isos- 
celes triangle,"  we  were  at  first  carried  oflf 
our  feet.  In  these  decadent  times  it  is  not 
polite  to  charge  a  public  man  in  print  with 
being  an  ass,  so  such  specious  terms  as  an 
"  isosceles  triangle "  and  a  "  transcenden- 
talist" have  become  common. 

The  Contributor  was  mad.  He  arose  to 
defend  his  absent  colleague's  character. 

The  Contributor.  —  "It  is  a  disgrace  that 
there  is  no  protection  for  a  man's  good 
194 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        195 

name.  The  Parson  a  trans  —  trans  —  oh, 
well,  whatever  you  call  it !  It  is  a  disgrace  ! 
He  is  no  more  a  transcen  —  thing-a-me- 
bob  —  than  I  am,  and  the  Lord  knows  I 
never  let  one  of  my  notes  go  to  protest. 
What's  a  trans  —  what  do  you  call  it  — 
anyway  ?" 

The  Reader,  — "  One  who  believes  in 
transcendentalism." 

The  Contributor,  —  "That's  it.  Now, 
who  dares  to  defame  our  Parson  ?  Er  — 
er —  What  in  the  name  of  common  sense 
is  this  new  ism  ? " 

The  Reader,  —  "  The  spiritual  cognoscence 
of  psychological  irrefragability,  connected 
with  concutient  ademption  of  incolumnient 
spirituality  and  etherealized  contention  of 
subsultory  concretion." 

The  Reader  put  up  his  guard  as  though 
he  expected  to  be  struck.  The  Contribu- 
tor's old  face  fairly  glowed.  His  chair  came 
down  on  all  four  legs,  and  he  grasped  the 
Reader's  upraised  hand. 


196        As  Talked  in  the  Smtctimi 

The  Contributor,  —  "A  thousand  thanks. 
You  have  made  many  things  clear  to  me. 
I  once  knew  a  transcendentalist  —  only  we 
called  him  a  fool.  He  has  since  gone 
crazy,  but  alack !  too  late,  you  have  discov- 
ered my  mistake  for  me.  He  lived  in  New 
York,  and  he  figured  out  that  a  post-hole 
for  a  fence  on  Broadway  cost,  as  real  estate 
sold,  one  hundred  dollars.  Up  in  Allegheny 
County,  where  he  was  born,  good  land  was 
worth  twenty-five  dollars  an  acre.  He  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  digging  post-holes  in  Alle- 
gheny, where  they  could  be  had  for  a  song, 
and  shipping  them  to  New  York,  where  a 
carload  would  sell  for  a  small  fortune." 

The  Reviewer,  — "  In  good  Anglo-Saxon, 
then,  transcendentalism  is  two  holes  in  a 
sand-bank ;  a  storm  washes  away  the  sand- 
bank without  disturbing  the  holes." 

The  Reader, — "I  have  always  noticed 
that  the  people  who  are  forever  discussing 
these  many  isms  take  themselves  more 
seriously  than   does   any  one   else.      They 


As  Talked  in  tlie  Sanctum        197 

get  hold  of  a  lot  of  stock  words  and  phrases 
and  build  up  an  article  around  them,  which, 
when  torn  apart  and  reduced  to  good,  old- 
fashioned  United  States,  contains  but  one 
single  everyday  idea.  Our  dictionaries 
grow  year  by  year  in  bulk  because  of  the 
thankless  tasks  the  compilers  undertake  in 
clearing  up  and  making  plain  a  lot  of  this 
stilted  bosh.  When  I  read  that  some  short- 
haired  woman  is  going  to  lecture  on  tran- 
scendentalism or  empiricism,  I  wonder  how 
big  an  audience  she  would  draw  if  she 
advertised  to  speak  on  '  The  Absurdity  of 
Experience,'  on  the  one  hand,  or  '  The 
Value  of  Experience,'  on  the  other.  In 
the  case  of  the  Parson,  the  callow  reporter 
no  doubt  meant  to  be  complimentary,  or,  at 
the  worst,  to  say  that  the  preacher  talked 
over  the  heads  of  his  audience.  There  is 
nothing  more  serious  in  these  weak-minded 
isms  than  in  Curran's  isosceles  triangle." 

To  the  average  man  all  this  vain  striving 


198        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

after  the  "  thingness  of  the  here  "  and  "  the 
whichness  of  the  where  "  is  supremely  laugh- 
able. It  is  but  just  one  remove  from  the 
madhouse.  A  world-renowned  theosophist 
dined  with  us  one  night.  We  were  all 
"  average  men  and  women "  at  the  table 
except  himself,  and  we  were  as  curious  as 
children  to  know  what  he  knew.  The  Gen- 
eral, who  was  something  of  an  Oriental 
scholar  and  had  been  in  charge  of  the 
British-Palestine  Exploration  Expedition, 
expressed  his  polite  though  undisguised 
astonishment  at  some  of  the  statements 
made  by  our  guest.  When  cornered  as  to 
his  authorities,  the  theosophist  at  last  cited 
cuneiform  inscriptions. 

"  But  surely  not  from  any  of  the  cunei- 
form inscriptions  that  have  been  recorded." 
And  the  old  General  arose  from  the  table  to 
take  down  some  ponderous  reports. 

"  Oh,  no,  not  from  the  Persian  or  Assyrian 
inscriptions." 

"  What,  then  ?  "     And   the  old   man  re- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        199 

placed  the  tome,  his  face  all  alight  with  the 
thought  that  the  theosophist  had  discovered 
some  unknown  people  that  used  the  famous 
wedge-shaped  characters. 

"  From  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  the 
temples  of  the  Aztecs,"  replied  the  high  priest 
of  theosophy,  triumphantly. 

There  was  a  stillness  of  death  about  the 
table.  The  General's  face  was  a  study,  but 
our  guest  was  mighty  in  the  double-riveted 
armor  of  his  own  ignorance. 

"Theosophy  is  all-wise,  all-powerful,"  he 
went  on. 

"  But  is  it  practical  ? "  some  one  timidly 
suggested.  "  Can  it  build  a  Brooklyn  Bridge, 
or  make  known  the  law  of  repulsion  ?  " 

"  Practical  ?  "  he  sneered.  "  What  are 
the  triumphs  of  the  material  in  the  light  of 
the  fact  that  we  know  where  we  came  from 
and  where  we  are  going  to  ? " 

"  Nothing,"  we  admitted  in  one  voice. 

"  And  do  you  know  ?  " 

"I  do ;  but  I  am  one  of  the  elect." 


200        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

We  did  not  embarrass  him  by  asking 
vulgar  questions,  we  were  fearful  he  would 
refer  us  to  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  the 
Esquimaux. 

The  other  evening  the  Parson  and  I  heard 
a  female  adept  in  theosophy  —  a  Russian 
Countess — lecture  on  death  and  what  comes 
after.  She  outlined  cleverly  enough  the 
seven  stages  through  which  the  soul  would 
pass  after  death.  She  said  that  cremation 
was  the  only  humane  manner  of  disposing 
of  the  earthly  body.  From  the  moment  the 
body  was  consumed  the  astral  body  was  re- 
leased, whereas  if  ordinary  burial  took  place, 
the  soul  had  to  remain  until  the  body  was 
decayed.  She  proved  conclusively  that  a 
man  who  committed  suicide  did  not  deUver 
himself  from  his  troubles.  The  soul  was 
condemned  to  remain  on  earth  and  work 
out  its  own  salvation.  It  suffered  hunger 
and  thirst  and  the  real  temptations  of  the 
flesh.  It  attached  itself  to  weak-minded  per- 
sons who  became  what  are  styled  mediums, 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        201 

in  order  to  Inhale  the  aroma  of  their  dinners 
and  participate  in  the  essence  of  their  pleas- 
ures. In  payment  for  these  privileges  it 
aided  the  medium  in  his  or  her  table  rap- 
pings  and  chair  knockings.  Naturally,  the 
thought  took  possession  of  us  that  the  wan- 
dering, condemned  soul  showed  very  bad 
taste  in  its  choice  of  victims.  If  they  wish 
to  smell  good  dinners,  why  do  they  not 
attach  themselves  to  Chauncey  Depew  or 
one  of  a  dozen  bon  vivants  that  we  could 
name  ?  And  all  the  authority  our  Countess 
could  give  for  her  remarkable  scheme  of 
after  death  was  two  cases  recorded  by  W.  T. 
Stead  in  his  Review  of  Reviews  of  the  sen- 
sation of  two  men  coming  back  to  life,  one 
of  whom  was  nearly  frozen  to  death  and  the 
other  nearly  drowned.  In  our  minds,  the 
only  difference  between  the  lecturer  and  an 
old  inmate  of  a  madhouse  who  labored 
under  the  agreeable  hallucination  that  she 
was  Queen  Victoria  was,  that  in  one  case  the 
people  did  not  smile  and  in  the  other  they  did. 


202        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

The  Reviewer,  —  "Her  logic  was  not  half 
as  clever,  yet  fully  as  absurd,  as  the  verdict 
of  a  Mohammedan  court  of  'homicide  by 
an  intermediate  cause/  You  remember  the 
case  of  the  young  man  of  the  Island  of  Cos 
in  the  iEgean  Sea  who  was  desperately  in 
love  with  a  girl  of  Stanchio,  and  sought  to 
marry  her.  His  proposals  were  rejected.  In 
consequence  he  took  poison.  The  Turkish 
police  arrested  the  father  of  the  obdurate 
fair  one,  and  tried  him  for  culpable  homi- 
cide. *  If  the  accused,'  argued  they,  with 
much  gravity,  '  had  not  had  a  daughter,  the 
deceased  would  not  have  fallen  in  love  ;  con- 
sequently, he  would  not  have  been  disap- 
pointed ;  consequently,  he  would  not  have 
swallowed  poison ;  consequently,  he  would 
not  have  died ;  but  the  accused  had  a 
daughter,  the  deceased  had  fallen  in  love, 
and  so  on.'  Upon  all  these  counts  he  was 
called  upon  to  pay  the  price  of  the  young 
man's  life ;  and  this,  being  fixed  at  the  sum 
of  eighty  piasters,  was  accordingly  exacted." 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        203 

The  Occasional  Visitor,  —  "I  have  noted 
that  these  clever  spirit  mediums  who  can 
make  chairs  and  miscellaneous  furniture 
dance  a  hornpipe,  always  call  in  a  very 
material  drayman  when  they  want  to  move 
the  piano." 

The  Contributor,  —  "  That's  simple  ;  the 
spirit  was  willing  but  the  flesh  was  weak." 

The  Artist, — "  However  absurd  the  Coun- 
tess's explanation  of  the  how  of  a  medium's 
powers,  it  may  be  true,  nevertheless.  You 
recollect  the  Frenchman  who  asked  an  Irish 
medium  to  produce  the  spirit  of  Voltaire. 
Voltaire  came  forth,  much  to  his  admirer's 
delight.  It  was  Voltaire  complete  in  every 
detail.  The  Frenchman  began  an  animated 
conversation  in  their  native  tongue.  The 
shade  did  not  respond.  At  last  the  French- 
man grew  exasperated  and  turned  to  the 
medium. 

"'Not  can  ze  great  Voltaire  converse.?' 

" '  Of  course  he  can,  yez  heathin,  if  ye 
will  stop  that  furrin  lingo    and   talk   good 


204      *  As  Talked  in  the  Sajtctum 

English.  Do  yez  take  him  for  a  frog- 
eater  ? ' 

"  It  occurred  to  me  that  the  medium  was 
rather  to  be  pitied  than  laughed  at.  Her 
silent  partner,  the  suicide,  according  to  the 
Countess's  theory,  had  not  learned  French 
before  he  took  his  own  life.  It  was  not 
the  medium's  fault  that  in  the  spirit  lottery 
she  had  not  drawn  a  linguist." 

The  Poet,  —  *' It  occurs  to  me  that  the 
Sanctum  hvas  been  housed  too  long  in  the 
city.  It  has  become  hypercritical.  A  season 
at  the  summer  resorts  would  put  new  blood 
and  kindlier  feelings  into  it.  For  one,  I 
take  the  train  to-morrow  for  Castle  Crags. 
I  bid  you,  my  good  fellow-mystics,  good 
day." 

As  the  Poet  passed  through  the  Office 
Boy's  sanctum  he  was  arrested  with  a  de- 
fiant, "  Say  ! " 

There  was  no  help  for  it  and  no  rescue 
possible.  "  Well  ?  "  answered  the  Poet, 
tentatively. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        205 

"  Are  you  de  Editor  ?  " 

The  Poet's  modest  explanation  was  un- 
heeded. 

"  I  brung  up  a  poem  here  two  weeks 
ago  on  '  The  Cooing  Dove/  I  want  ter 
know  why  it  has  not  been  brung  out.  Tm 
no  tenderfoot,  der  you  see,  an'  if  that  'ere 
poem  don't  see  light  in  next  month's  maga- 
zine there'll  be  trouble.  You  sabe !  I 
don't  forget  faces,  and  I've  yourn  spotted. 
You'll  miss  about  twelve  feet  of  that  yellow 
alfalfa  yer  so  all-fired  proud  of  Now  does 
'  The  Cooing  Dove '  go,  or  ain't  I  no 
poet  ?  " 

The  Poet  gave  his  word  that  "  The  Coo- 
ing Dove"  would  coo  in  large  pica,  and 
thanked  Heaven  that  he  was  leaving  for 
Castle  Crags.  Whereupon  it  was  at  once 
deemed  best  that  the  Editor  should  recu- 
perate at  Napa  Soda  ins  tan  ter. 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof ! " 


XVII 

THE  Parson  has  joined  the  "  Sons  of  the 
American  Revolution." 
He  was  literally  driven  to  it  by  the  Par- 
soness,  who,  now  that  the  children  are  all 
settled  away  from  home,  has  been  hunt- 
ing up  her  forebears.  A  month  ago  the 
Parson  knew  the  names  of  his  father  and 
his  grandfather.  Of  late,  every  sheet  of 
loose  paper  in  the  office  contains  a  rough 
sketch  of  the  genealogical  tree.  He  talks 
of  Mindwell  who  died  of  spasms  in  the 
fourth  month  of  her  existence  as  familiarly 
as  though  she  were  the  offspring  of  one  of 
his  parishioners  instead  of  his  great-great- 
great-great-aunt,  twice  removed.  The  other 
day  he  stopped  the  machinery  of  the  Sanc- 
tum while  he  told  us  a  thrilling  tale  of  how 
Steadfast  was  personally  thanked  by  General 
206 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        207 

Washington  for  taking  prisoner  twenty-four 
Hessians  at  Monmouth.  Steadfast  was  the 
particular  ancestor  that  had  the  honor  of 
making  it  possible  for  the  Parson  to  bear  on 
his  lapel  the  proud  insignia  of  the  order  of 
"  The  Sons  of  the  American  Revolution." 

I  think  we  were  all  a  little  jealous  of  the 
Parson,  although  we  openly  joked  him  on 
his  weakness ;  for  it  would  seem  that  the 
search  after  the  elusive  Revolutionary  great- 
great-grandfather,  of  whom  we  have  heard 
marvellous  stories  since  our  cradle  days,  be- 
comes as  exciting  as  a  tiger  hunt.  There  is 
never  any  particular  trouble  in  locating  your 
great-grandfather  or  your  many  times  great- 
grandfather. You  soon  discover  his  birth, 
marriage,  and  death,  that  he  was  a  select- 
man, justice,  or  elder,  and  a  good  honest 
farmer  or  tradesman,  in  and  about  Colonial 
times ;  but  the  heroic  ancestor  who  bore 
arms  that  the  Nation  might  be  free,  soon 
proves  as  hard  to  grasp  and  hold  as  an  eel. 
There  is  no  doubt   that   he  fought  in  the 


2o8        ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Connecticut  line.  There  is  no  reason  to 
think  that  the  story  of  his  personally  cap- 
turing twenty-four  Hessians  has  been  ex- 
aggerated. You  have  worshipped  many  a 
time  at  the  shrine  of  the  old  flintlock  that 
he  bore  at  Monmouth,  and  yet  the  hard- 
hearted society  will  not  take  you  in  until 
you  actually  know  the  letter  of  his  company 
and  the  number  of  his  regiment.  Our  an- 
cestors do  not  seem  to  have  had  proper 
appreciation  of  their  duty  toward  their  pos- 
terity. It  is  not  every  man  that  can  become 
an  ancestor.  Our  Revolutionary  fathers,  Hke 
Napoleon's  marshals,  should  have  realized 
that  they  were  ancestors,  and  that,  sometime 
within  the  next  two  hundred  years,  a  great- 
great-grandchild  would  wish  to  date  from 
them  and  join  the  sons  or  daughters  of  the 
Revolution.  It  was  Washington's  duty  to 
have  brevetted  every  private  in  the  Conti- 
nental Line  at  least  a  major,  on  retirement. 
It  is  a  humiliating  thing  to  have  to  own 
up  that  you  came  down  from  a  private,  or 


^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        209 

even  a  sergeant-major.  Washington,  who 
thought  of  so  much,  should  have  thought 
of  this.  Was  he  not  the  Father  of  his 
Country  ? 

The  Parson's  ancestor  seems  to  have  been 
so  glad  when  the  war  closed  that  he  settled 
quietly  down  and  never  ran  for  office  or 
applied  for  a  pension.  From  the  day  when 
peace  was  declared,  the  family  records  do 
not  even  make  mention  of  a  fight  in  church 
over  a  choir.  To  the  shame  of  his  pos- 
terity, he  did  not  strive  to  realize  in  any 
way  on  his  Commander's  thanks  for  captur- 
ing the  two  dozen  odd  Hessians.  An  an- 
cestor who  has  so  little  regard  for  the  glory 
of  the  family  tree  does  not  deserve  to  have 
a  great-great-great-grandchild  in  the  "  Sons 
of  the  American  Revolution."  The  Parson 
feels  this  blot  on  the  escutcheon  keenly, 
almost  as  keenly  now  as  the  good  Parsoness. 

It  was  one  of  the  Occasional  Visitor's 
grandchildren  that  solved  the  question  for 
us  the  other  day.     The  Parson  was  fondly 


2IO        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

boasting,  in  his  dear  quiet  way,  of  the  good 
blood  in  his  veins.  The  little  fellow  listened 
thoughtfully  and  respectfully  until  he  heard 
the  Occasional  Visitor  acknowledge  thai:  he 
could  not  join  the  "  Sons  "  ;  then  he  flew  to 
his  sire's  defence. 

"My  grandpa  has  just  as  good  blood  as 
any  one  if  he  can't  join  the  society,  and  twice 
as  good  veins.  Haven't  you,  Grandpa  ? " 
he  finished  triumphantly. 

It  is  something  to  have  good  veins  in 
these  degenerate  days. 

When  we  came  to  discussing  seriously  the 
Parson  and  his  Revolutionary  ancestor,  after 
the  good  man  had  departed,  we  were  surprised 
to  discover  how  much  our  man  of  peace  and 
good-will  valued  the  bloody  deeds,  and  how 
he  deprecated  his  later,  uneventful  life.  Not 
that  we  did  not  all  agree  with  him  ;  but  it 
gives  one  a  start  to  be  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  fact  that  after  all  these  centuries  of 
cultivation  and  civilization  we  are  nothing 
but  barbarous  war-dogs  at  heart. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sancttim        2 1 1 

The  Occasional  Visitor's  Revolutionary 
ancestor  was  a  minister,  a  godly  man  who 
wrote  a  godly  book,  and  yet,  on  the  genea- 
logical tree,  he  is  placed  far  below  the 
farmer  brother  who  cultivated  a  little  farm 
on  the  Indian  borderland  with  a  gun  in  one 
hand  and  a  plough  in  the  other,  and  who  left 
the  plough  to  follow  Ethan  Allen  to  Ticon- 
deroga.  The  faint  odor  of  dried  scalps  and 
the  perfume  of  gunpowder  smother  the  es- 
sence of  the  godly  life  and  the  reminiscent 
aroma  of  musty  tomes. 

The  descendants  of  the  illustrious  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  need  never  expect  to  out- 
rank the  descendants  *  of  the  savage  old 
warrior,  Ethan  Allen,  or  the  obstinate  old 
fighter,  Israel  Putnam.  It  is  better  to  have 
been  a  sergeant-major  even,  and,  single- 
handed,  to  have  captured  twenty-four  Hes- 
sians, than  to  have  been  a  Colonial  Governor  ; 
while  a  Colonial  Doctor  of  Divinity  is  passed 
over  in  pitying  silence.  Four-fifths  of  the 
Christian  world  would  rather  boast  of  being 


212        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

a  great-great-great-something  of  Richard  the 
Lion-Hearted  than  of  Shakspere. 

And  yet  all  of  our  Revolutionary  an- 
cestors could  not  have  been  fighting  farmers. 
Some  of  them  were  soap-boilers,  button- 
makers,  anchor-smiths,  and  candle-makers. 
Still,  that  is  never  mentioned.  The  tiller 
of  the  soil  was  of  the  baronial  class,  although 
the  soap-boiler  may  have  been  his  own 
brother  and  have  captured  twenty-two  more 
Hessians,  and  run  for  office  after  the  war. 

The  Reader,  — "  While  I  am  ready  to 
give  up  laughing  at  the  once  pitied  genea- 
logical *  crank,*  I  wish  to  protest  against 
the  habit  my  neighbors  have  of  tracing 
themselves  back  to  English  Barons  and 
French  Counts.  I  am  willing  to  concede 
that  the  Mayflower  was  larger  than  the  Great 
Eastern^  and  that  the  families  of  Lord  Fairfax 
and  Lord.  Baltimore  were  the  most  numer- 
ous on  earth ;  but  I  cannot  be  expected  to 
bow  to  the  lady  next  door  because  she 
calmly  asserts  that,  by  rights,  her  father  is 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        213 

the  only  true  Earl  of  Tallpuddle,  and  she 
should  be  known  as  Lady  Maud.  The 
mere  fact  that  my  name  happens  to  be 
Hapsburg  does  not  make  me,  an  American 
citizen,  the  Crown  Prince  of  Austria.  If 
I  believe  in  your  genealogy  back  to  the 
time  when  your  ancestor  came  over  in  an 
emigrant  ship,  I  think  I  may  be  excused  for 
smiling  at  you  when  you  claim  kinship  with 
George  III.  or  Guy  Fawkes.*' 

The  Artist,  —  "I  move  that  the  Reader 
be  excused." 

The  Reader,  —  "  Insomuch  as  I  am  confess- 
ing and  the  Artist  so  freely  grants  me  abso- 
lution, I  feel  encouraged  to  unburden  my 
mind  on  the  subject.  There  is  another  class 
of  individuals  that  tire  me.  The  Editor 
complains  that  our  Revolutionary  fathers  did 
not  realize  that  they  were  ancestors.  To 
me,  that  is  the  grandest  thing  about  them, 
—  their  glorious  unconsciousness.  Had 
they  been  posing  for  history  we  should  still 
be   a   Colony.      To    the   actors,    there   was 


214       ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

nothing  picturesque  in  the  crossing  of  the 
Delaware.  Washington  and  his  Httle  band 
had  no  thought  of  the  fame  the  act  would 
bring  them  on  the  front  of  a  fire  insurance 
calendar.  I  doubt  if  the  tattered,  starving, 
frozen  veterans  at  Valley  Forge  could  have 
been  more  picturesque  had  they  been  deliber- 
ately posing,  yet  the  only  thought  they  had 
of  their  posterity  was  to  give  them  all  the 
rights  of  man.  We  have  grown  wiser  since, 
studying  the  mistakes  of  our  ancestors,  and, 
to-day,  when  one  of  our  neighbors  achieves 
riches  and  is  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  he  begins  to  prepare  for  the 
admiration  of  those  that  are  to  follow.  He 
carefully  puts  aside  his  boot-jacks,  the  coat 
he  wore  when  he  took  the  oath  of  office, 
the  forks  that  were  used  when  he  had 
the  President  at  his  table,  his  manicure 
set  (unused),  his  shaving-mug,  a  hat,  a 
pocket-book  (most  interesting),  a  pipe  pre- 
sented by  the  convicts  of  the  State  Peniten- 
tiary as  a  mark  of  esteem,  and  a  cane  made 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        215 

from  the  wood  of  his  first  rocking-chair. 
He  has  his  picture  painted  heroic  size,  in 
the  attitude  of  Henry  Clay.  He  discovers  a 
coat-of-arms  and  by  it  proves,  a  mere  noth- 
ing, that  if  he  chose  —  but  he  is  above  all 
that  —  he  could  lay  claim  to  the  blood  of 
Warwick,  or  even  Cromwell.  He  prepares 
himself  for  posterity,  and  his  supreme  ego- 
tism makes  him  unaware  of  the  sneers  and 
laughter  of  his  own  generation.  A  dozen 
busts  of  himself  adorn  the  palatial  home, 
which  he  has  built  for  the  family  castle,  and 
which  the  heirs  will  sell  or  present  to  the 
city  for  a  Museum  or  Art  Gallery  within  a 
year  after  his  death.  He  gives  a  statue  of 
himself  to  the  Park  Commissioners  and 
another  to  some  near-by  university  which 
he  has  endowed.  Such  is  the  professional 
ancestor  !  It  is  unnecessary  to  name  names. 
You  all  know  the  species.  Should  it  be 
encouraged  ? " 

The  Artist,  —  "It  should   be.     I    would 
not  take  all  the  humor  out  of  life." 


2i6        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

The  Contributor,  —  "I  am  looking  forward 
to  the  time  when  genealogy  will  be  studied 
as  a  science  by  the  aid  of  which  the  irrevoca- 
ble laws  of  nature  in  human  culture  can  and 
will  be  as  definitely  determined  as  in  agri- 
culture, horticulture,  or  the  raising  of  live 
stock.  In  the  perfect  genealogy  I  want  every 
family's  inherent  weaknesses,  mental  and 
moral,  physical  and  intellectual,  set  down  as 
truly  and  as  honestly  as  its  strong  points. 
Then  it  will  be  an  easy  matter  to  determine 
what  men  have  been  and  what  we  may  expect 
for  the  future.  If  a  young  man  or  young 
woman  has  such  an  open  book  before  him  or 
her,  there  will  be  more  judicious  marriages 
and  less  suffering  from  ignorance.  If  you 
wish  to  unite  yourself  with  a  family  of  brains, 
you  will  not  expect  anything  from  a  single 
line  of  muscle.  If  it  is  a  Christian  family 
that  you  wish  to  bring  into  the  world,  you 
will  not  be  aided  by  a  family  whose  genealogy 
shows  a  line  of  sceptics.  Blood  tells  every 
time;    only    one    is    apt    to  mistake  blood. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        217 

The  scholar,  the  Christian,  or  the  inventor 
owes  more  to  the  blood  of  his  ancestors  than 
to  his  own  efforts.  In  the  introduction  of 
every  genealogy  I  would  have  copied  the 
Parable  of  the  Sower.  Although  the  seed 
was  of  the  same  quality  and  sown  by  the 
same  hand,  it  produced  widely  different  re- 
sults, some  thirty,  some  sixty,  and  some  an 
hundred  fold ;  and  some  sprang  up  to  wither 
away ;  and  because,  while  some  seeds  fell  in 
good  soil,  others  fell  by  the  wayside  and  on 
stony  places,  so,  in  our  marriages,  look  for 
success  where  there  are  sound  heads,  healthy 
bodies,  and  honest  hearts.  Such  should  be 
my  genealogy,  even  if  I  failed  to  get 
into  the  *  Sons '  or  was  forced  to  admit 
that  my  ancestor  was  a  crippled  Colonial 
cobbler,  who  stayed  quietly  at  home,  and 
sent  anonymously  every  fifth  pair  of  his 
laboriously  made  shoes  to  the  freezing 
men  at  Valley  Forge,  while  the  Parson's 
fighting  ancestor  was  capturing  his  score 
of  Hessians." 


2i8       As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

The  Poet,  — "  Sublime.  That  is  good 
enough  for  the  Parson/' 

The  Contributor,  —  "I  am  not  jealous  of 
the  Parson.  I  am  glad  he  belongs  to  the 
*  Sons.'  I  believe  in  knowing  who  your  an- 
cestors are,  even  if  you  must  have  them 
made  to  order  by  a  second-rate  portrait 
painter.  It  all  stimulates  love  of  country, 
and  makes  anarchy  and  foreign  meddling 
impossible.  Let  every  man  claim  that  his 
great-great-grandfather  captured  twenty-four 
Hessians  in  the  Revolution.  Whether  he 
did  or  not,  it  will  make  your  children  will- 
ing to  undertake  it  some  day  if  the  occasion 
ever  occurs.     Selah  !  " 

The  Bookkeeper.  — "  There  is  a  German 
lady  out  here  who  wishes  to  read  a  two-quire 
ballad  to  the  Editor." 

The  Office  Boy.  —  "  Proof !  " 


XVIII 

"  T   HAVE  often  wondered,"  remarked  the 

A    Contributor,  "why  some  one  has  not 

laid  the  charge  of  plagiarism  at  my  door." 

The  Reader.  —  "  There  may  be  reasons 
that  would  never  suggest  themselves  to  you." 

The  Contributor, — "Indeed!  I  admit 
that  I  am  not  what  might  be  called  a  popu- 
lar author,  but  I  am  a  voluminous  one  and 
a  wide  reader.  Again  and  again  I  have 
caught  myself  plagiarizing,  sometimes  my- 
self, ofttimes  my  favorite  authors. 

"  Within  the  year  I  have  read  an  article 
in  a  magazine  that  I  had  read  not  a  month 
before  in  a  New  York  publication.  I  did 
not  feel  called  upon  to  announce  my  dis- 
covery to  the  world ;  for  the  plagiarism  was 
an  improvement.  I  remember  writing  a 
story,  one  winter.  I  worked  hard  over  it. 
I  felt  inspired.  The  plot  slowly,  but  surely, 
219 


220        As  Talked  in  the  Sane  htm 

developed.  Incidents  grew  into  scenes,  and 
what,  at  first,  seemed  to  be  embryo  thoughts, 
gradually  formed  themselves  into  rounded 
paragraphs.  At  last,  it  was  finished.  I  read 
it  aloud  to  the  family.  As  I  read,  something 
about  it  all  seemed  strangely  familiar,  and  as 
if  led  by  an  unseen  hand  I  arose,  went  to 
my  library,  took  down  an  old  scrap-book, 
and  turned  to  my  story  with  a  well-known, 
but  almost  forgotten,  author's  name  signed 
to  it.  It  was  a  bitter  moment,  and  the 
experience  was  curious.  For  years  I  dis- 
trusted myself,  and  even  to-day  I  am  always 
expecting  some  one  to  rise  up  and  demand 
an  explanation  and  apology.'* 
The  Artist.  —  "  You  flatter  us." 
The  Poet,  —  "Our  Contributor  says  of 
himself  as  Hawesworth  said  of  Johnson, 
*  You  have  a  memory  that  would  convict 
any  author  of  plagiarism  in  any  court  of 
literature  in  the  world.*  " 

The  plagiarism  hunter  found   plenty  of 
sport  in  the  literature  of  the  last  campaign. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        221 

Moreover,  it  was  wonderful  how  boldly  the 
profession  was  carried  on,  and  how  little 
attention  was  paid  to  the  revelations  of  the 
plagiarism-hunter.  A  few  years  ago  half  the 
big  New  York  papers  devoted  a  page  a  day 
of  parallel  column  to  convict  one  of  our 
Senators  of  stealing  an  oration.  It  seemed 
to  be  a  clear  case,  but  the  Senator  got  the 
credit  of  the  oration,  and  the  very  name  of 
the  original  orator  is  lost.  In  any  case,  he 
improved  upon  it,  which  met  all  of  Byron's 
requirements  of  a  plagiarist :  "  A  good 
thought  is  often  far  better  expressed  at 
second-hand  than  at  first  utterance.  If  rich 
material  has  fallen  into  incompetent  hands, 
it  would  be  the  height  of  injustice  to  debar 
a  more  skilful  artisan  from  taking  possession 
of  it  and  working  it  up." 

The  campaign  plagiarist,  in  the  maga- 
zines and  out,  works,  generally,  on  the 
same  model,  —  in  an  article  on  some  phase 
of  the  burning  questions  of  the  day  he 
combines  extracts,  without  credit  or  quota- 


222        As  Talked  in  the  Sancttim 

tion  marks,  from  speeches,  essays,  editorials, 
statistics,  and  campaign  literature,  under  one 
head,  and  signs  his  name  to  the  pot-pourri 
as  the  veritable  author.  He  does  it  skil- 
fully, therefore  he  is  excused  with  a  smile. 
Again,  he  is  within  the  Byronic  definition  : 
"  Plagiarism,  to  be  sure,  is  branded  of  old, 
but  is  never  criminal  except  when  done 
in  a  clumsy  way,  like  stealing  among  the 
Spartans." 

In  August,  1894,  there  appeared  in  our 
magazine  a  story  called  "  Kaala,  the  Flower 
of  Lanai,"  rather  a  pretty  bit  of  Hawaiian 
folk-lore.  The  writer's  name  was  Carey, 
and  his  manuscript  had  been  in  the  Sanctum 
since  the  November  previous.  On  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday,  after  the  appearance  of  the 
magazine,  one  of  the  big  dailies  had  a 
Hawaiian  tale  entitled,  "  Kaala,  the  Flower 
of  Lanai,"  reproducing  our  story  without 
either  credit  or  signature.  Very  promptly 
the  magazine  called  the  attention  of  the 
newspaper  to  the  apparent  theft,  whereupon 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        223 

the  newspaper  demanded  an  explanation 
from  one  Hayne,  the  ambitious  author  who 
had  sold  it  the  manuscript.  Hayne  promptly 
denied  having  seen  our  August  number,  and 
proved  beyond  argument  that  his  "  copy  " 
had  for  several  weeks  previous  been  in  the 
newspaper's  possession.  The  tale  was  writ- 
ten the  preceding  January,  he  claimed,  and, 
like  Carey,  he  was  unable  to  conceive  how 
his  exact  ideas  and  phrases  could  possibly 
have  occurred  to  any  one  else.  Further,  to 
complicate  the  situation,  an  ex- United  States 
Minister  to  Hawaii  wrote,  referring  us  to 
King  Kalakaua's  volume,  "  The  Legends 
and  Myths  of  Hawaii,"  for  the  original 
version  of  Kaala.  Both  the  contributors, 
however,  denied  any  knowledge  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  book,  and  a  month  later  a 
Honolulu  paper  wrote  an  editorial  denounc- 
ing the  editor  of  this  magazine  for  stealing, 
bodily,  word  for  word,  the  story  *'  Kaala," 
from  its  old  files,  and  signing  a  fictitious 
name  to  it. 


224        ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

And  that  was  not  the  end.  A  year  later 
a  well-known  Hawaiian  gentleman,  of  good 
literary  standing,  submitted  "  Kaala,"  the 
same  old  "  Kaala,"  even  to  the  punctuation 
marks,  for  the  magazine's  consideration. 
It  was  not  considered.  The  same  arrange- 
ment of  gray  matter  could  not  have  been 
in  all  these  brains  —  or  was  it  possible  ? 
Only  the  X-ray  will  ever  reveal. 

Two  years  ago  there  was  received  in  the 
Sanctum  a  delicious  Irish  story  that  was  read 
with  enthusiasm  and  published  with  a  blare 
of  trumpets.  It  was  out  of  the  ordinary 
—  full  of  delightful  waggish  wit  and  pictu- 
resque conceits.  From  the  opening  sentence 
it  brought  a  smile  to  the  lips,  and  left  a  feel- 
ing of  good  digestion.  At  once  the  writer 
was  asked  to  become  a  regular  contributor, 
but  before  his  next  was  received  the  follow- 
ing letter  came  to  the  editor's  desk :  — 

"  The  paper  in  the  last  issue  of  your  magazine 
entitled  'Told  in  the  Dog- Watch,'  by  'T.  J.  B.,' 
is  a  plagiarism.     It  is  taken  from  page  580  of '  Bur- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum       225 

ton's  Cyclopedia  of  Wit  and  Humor,'  published 
by  the  Appletons  in  1858.  Its  real  title  is  'Darby 
Doyle's  Voyage  to  Quebec'  " 

"T.  J.  B."  may  have  a  plausible  excuse. 
Yet  I  think  that  even  he  would  recognize 
a  difference  between  his  methods  and  Doc- 
tor Holmes's,  who  confessed,  "  I  have  often 
felt,  after  writing  a  line  that  pleased  me  more 
than  common,  that  it  was  not  new,  and  was 
perhaps  not  my  own."  Neither  do  I  think 
that  even  Byron  would  pat  "  T.  J.  B."  on 
the  back  and  remark,  as  he  has  done  :  "  Com- 
mend me  to  a  pilferer.  You  may  laugh  at 
it  as  a  paradox,  but  I  assure  you  that  the  most 
original  writers  are  the  greatest  thieves." 

The  Reviewer,  —  "I  never  heard  of  any 
one  plagiarizing  the  Poet." 

The  Poet,  — "  No  one  ever  plagiarized 
Virgil." 

The  Reader,  —  "Yet  one  must  get  the 
straw  for  his  bricks  somewhere." 

Successful  plagiarism  all  depends  upon 
the  caliber  of  the  plagiarist.     To  copy  ver- 


226        ^s  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

batim  requires  no  brain,  but  to  draw  from 
Homer  and  Theocritus,  as  Virgil  did,  and 
leave  behind  the  "i^neid"  requires  some- 
thing more  than  a  lead  pencil  and  white 
paper.  It  was  Tennyson  who  spoke  of  the 
"  masterly  plagiarisms  "  of  Virgil  and  Mil- 
ton, and  yet  his  work  is  a  perfect  mosaic 
of  gems  from  almost  every  writer  in  ancient 
and  modern  times.  Of  Milton  it  has  been 
said :  "  The  lilt  of  old  songs  was  in  his  ears, 
the  happy  phrases  of  old  poets,  the  jewels, 
five  words  long,  from  old  treasures.  He  had 
the  opulent  memory  of  the  profound  stu- 
dent, and  these  things  crowded  thickly  into 
his  thought  with  each  new  suggestion  from 
without.'*  iEsop's  fables  can  be  found  in 
the  older  Hindoo  literature.  Goethe  never 
claimed  all  the  credit  for  his  immortal 
"Faust."  "What,"  he  asks,  "would  re- 
main to  me  if  this  art  of  appropriation 
were  derogatory  to  genius  .^  Every  one 
of  my  writings  has  been  furnished  to  me 
by  a  thousand  different  poems,  a  thousand 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        227 

different  things.  My  work  is  an  aggrega- 
tion of  beings  taken  from  the  whole  of 
nature;   it  bears  the  name  of  Goethe." 

It  would  have  done  the  soul  of  Moliere 
good  if  he  could  have  made  the  same  frank 
confession  regarding  "  Don  Juan."  Wash- 
ington Irving  "lifted"  the  "Story  of  the 
German  Student,"  in  the  "  Tales  of  a  Trav- 
eller," from  one  of  Hoffmann's  "  Contes 
Nocturnes,"  and  the  very  same  story  was 
afterward  used  by  Alexandre  Dumas  the 
elder,  in  "  La  Dame  au  Collier  de  Velours." 

Goldsmith's  "  Madame  Blaize  "  is  a  close 
translation  of  a  poem  by  the  Frenchman  De 
la  Monnoye.  Thackeray's  "Romance  of 
the  Rhine'-  is  nothing  more  than  Dumas's 
"Othon  I'Archer."  Tennyson's  "Enoch 
Arden  "  was  probably  modelled  on  Words- 
worth's "Michael,"  his  "In  Memoriam " 
was  suggested  by  Petrarch,  his  "  Dream  of 
Fair  Women "  by  Chaucer,  his  "  Godiva " 
by  Moultrie,  and  hi^  "  Dora ''  by  Miss 
Mitford.     The  debts  of  Boccaccio,  of  De  la 


228        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Salle,  of  Chaucer,  Shakspere,  and  Moliere 
to  the  old  French  "  Fabliaux  "  will  never  be 
discharged.  . 

One  of  the  most  amusing  cases  of  uncon- 
scious plagiarism  that  was  tragically  comical 
in  its  results  happened  to  a  once  well-known 
Philadelphia  magazine.  Its  editor  unearthed 
in  a  German  monthly  Edward  Everett  Hale's 
"  Man  Without  a  Country."  It  struck  him 
as  one  of  the  best  things  of  the  century,  and 
he  promptly  retranslated  it  back  into  its 
original  English,  and  published  it  in  the 
magazine  with  a  salvo  of  hurrahs  that  was 
heard  from  Bangor  to  the  Golden  Gate. 
He  and  his  magazine  were  laughed  into 
their  graves  by  a  good-natured  republic. 

The  modern  writer  is  indebted  more  than 
he  realizes  to  the  ancients  for  the  most  con- 
ventional phrases.  On  three  successive  pages 
of  Fielding  may  be  discovered  the  well-worn 
expressions,  "  The  eternal  fitness  of  things," 
"  Distinction  without  a  difference,"  and  "An 
amiable   weakness."      Sir   Walter    Scott   is 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        229 

caught  using  in  "  St.  Ronan's  Well,"  "  Fat, 
fair,  and  forty." 

The  Bible  is  full  of  epigrams  and  catch- 
words that  are  discovered  and  rediscovered 
yearly  by  every  new  batch  of  strictly  original 
literateurs.  There  are  certain  expressions  that 
are  always  used  without  quotation  marks,  and 
yet  not  one  in  a  hundred  stops  to  think 
from  whence  they  come ;  for  example, 
"  It  is  not  good  that  the  man  should  be 
alone,"  "  There  were  giants  in  those  days," 
"In  a  green  old  age,"  "  Darkness  which 
may  be  felt,"  "The  wife  of  thy  bosom," 
"  He  kept  him  as  the  apple  of  his  eye," 
"  Quit  yourselves  like  men,"  "  A  man  after 
his  own  heart,"  "I  am  escaped  with  the  skin 
of  my  teeth,"  "  Great  men  are  not  always 
wise."  It  must  be  annoying  to  the  author, 
as  it  is  to  the  inventor,  to  stumble  on  a 
brand  new  idea,  and  then  be  informed  that 
it  is  as  old  as  the  Alexandrian  Library. 

The  Contributor,  —  "I  have  often  made 
up  my  mind,  after  listening  to  one  of  the 


230        As  Talked  hi  the  Sanctum 

Parson's  sermons,  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  being  too  original." 

The  Parson,  —  "  Thank  you.  I  can't  say 
as  much  for  this  conversation." 

The  Bookkeeper.  —  "  Joaquin  Miller  wants 
to  know  if  it  is  safe  for  him  to  come  in  ? " 

The  Office  Boy.—'' Proof!  " 


XIX 

1KEEP  a  note-book,  —  not  a  large  one, 
—  and  in  it  jot  down  things  that  come 
to  me  as  I  read  —  thoughts  that  I  imagine 
are  original.  A  passage  in  a  novel  calls 
forth  an  idea  that,  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
it  was  never  intended  to  suggest.  Of  all 
writers  Balzac,  I  think,  is  the  most  fertile 
in  this  direction.  The  Contributor  main- 
tains that  Balzac  tires  him,  that  he  can- 
not even  keep  the  thread  of  the  narrative, 
much  less  go  afield  for  the  original  gems ; 
but,  with  me,  it  is  so  entirely  different  that 
I  am  inclined  to  charge  the  old  man  with 
falling  into  his  dotage.  Balzac  acts  like  a 
stimulant.  My  mind  is  never  so  active  as 
when  reading  "  Pere  Goriot  "  or  "  Eugenie 
Grandet."  It  seems  to  grasp  every  word, 
to  read  between  the  lines,  and  to  look  into 


232        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

th«  great  Frenchman's  soul  for  the  thought 
that  he  discarded  in  weaving  the  superb 
fabric.  I  keep  the  note-book,  as  I  have 
found  it  impossible  to  hold  and  summon 
up  at  will  the  ideas  that  go  dancing  before 
my  eyes. 

Now  the  note-book  has  discovered  to  me 
another  phase  of  my  disposition,  at  which 
again,  the  Contributor  pooh-poohs.  It  is 
this :  after  chronicling  my  thoughts,  which, 
if  they  come  to  me  while  reading  Balzac, 
have  a  philosophical  twist,  I  find  that  it 
may  be  months  before  I  am  in  the  exact 
mood  to  take  advantage  of  them.  I  admit, 
as  J  glance  them  over  with  a  firm  intention 
of  using  them,  that  they  are  not  half  bad, 
but  —  but  —  for  some  reason  I  pass  them 
by.  It  was  said  of  Bob  Burdette  that  he 
discovered  his  talent  as  a  humorist  while 
trying  to  amuse  his  dying  wife ;  so,  if  you 
can  appear  gay  when  you  are  sad,  instead 
of  being  simply  stolid,  something  has  been 
achieved. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        233 

There  are  times  when  you  can  read  any 
book  that  comes  to  hand.  And  there  are 
times  when  you  crave  for  inspiration  or  ab- 
solutely require  a  mental  stimulant.  Then  it 
is  that  your  favorite  authors  become  a  bless- 
ing. Whether  they  be  Balzac,  Thackeray, 
Dickens,  Hugo,  Bret  Harte,  or  Haggard, 
the  result  is  the  same.  Champagne  has  no 
fascination  when  you  want  beer. 

With  absolute  failure,  mayhap  possible 
poverty,  staring  you  in  the  face,  it  may  take 
a  great  exercise  of  will  power  to  sit  calmly 
down  to  a  novel,  even  by  a  prime  favorite ; 
but  it  is  worth  the  effort.  You  think,  "  I 
will  read  and  enjoy  while  I  can ;  for  the 
time  may  come,  at  .any  moment,  when  I 
cannot  afford  the  luxury,  and  the  memory 
of  this  will  be  a  well-spring  of  pleasure  and 
a  solace."  Then  the  power  of  the  book 
enters  into  you  and  drives  you  to  the  very 
effort  that  surmounts  the  obstacles  that  lie 
in  your  path.  "  If  I  must  fail,  I  will  fail 
doing  my  best.**     And   then  I  win.     It  is 


234        ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

a  surprise  that  never  grows  stale.  All,  even 
the  Contributor,  acknowledge  these  mental 
struggles  and  self-doubts ;  but  only  a  few 
recognize  and  profit  by  accepting  them. 

There  is  one  little  plot  for  a  story  in  my 
note-book  that  I  have  always  intended  to 
work  up.  As  I  remember  it,  it  was  a  true 
story,  but  when  or  where  its  incidents 
occurred  I  cannot  recollect.  Many  and 
many  a  time  I  have  paused  when  I  came 
to  it,  and  remarked  that  it  was  a  capital  plot 
for  a  child's  story,  and  one  that  would  bring 
the  tears.  I  have  shrunk  from  the  effort 
of  dressing  the  skeleton ;  for  in  order  to 
put  the  proper  clothes  on  it  I  should  have 
to  draw  too  heavily  from  my  own  scant 
wardrobe.  The  story  was  pathetic  in  the 
extreme,  and  in  order  to  make  the  most  of 
it  I  realized  that  I  must  get  teary  in  its 
writing,  or  my  readers  would  never  do  so. 

Charles  Warren  Stoddard  said  of  the  first 
editor  of  this  magazine,  "  Once,  when  he 
had  taken  me  to  task  for  a  bit  of  careless 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        235 

work,  then  under  his  critical  eye,  and  com- 
plained of  a  false  number,  I  thought  to  turn 
away  wrath  by  a  soft  answer ;  I  told  him 
that  I  had  just  met  a  man  who  had  wept 
over  a  certain  passage  in  one  of  his  sketches." 

"Well,"  said  Harte,  "I  wept  when  I 
wrote  it." 

Here  is  the  outline  of  my  story  as  I  noted 
it.  You  will  see  why  I  hesitate  to  bring  my- 
self to  the  proper  pitch,  and  you  will  recog- 
nize the  artistic  possibilities. 


\  c>  R  M  H  V    A 

or  THK 


Unrequited  Devotion        f  tj r  r VFRSITx 

Little  boy  is  cast  away  in  a  flood  on  a  timb6'.  -y^lf  2^^ 

His  faithful  dog  swims  out  to  him,  and  they  are 
carried  away  together. 

They  live  for  two  days  floating  down  a  great 
river. 

The  dog  sustains  the  boy  after  he  is  exhausted. 

The  dog's  barking  attracts  attention. 

A  rescuing  party  saves  the  boy,  but  heartlessly 
allows  the  dog  to  perish. 

A  master  might  expand  the  sixty  words  to 
three  thousand  and  make  of  it  a  sweet  little 


236        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

classic  that  would  rank  with  some  of  Hans 
Christian  Andersen's ;  and  yet  the  thought 
comes  up,  could  he  paint  a  more  pathetic 
picture  with  all  his  art  than  the  tender,  sym- 
pathetic imagination  of  any  child  would 
weave  about  this  tiny  outline  the  moment 
he  read  it  ?  Of  course  it  is  this  quality  of 
expressing  what  one  feels  that  makes  the 
author;  yet,  again,  would  it  not  take  a 
greater  genius  to  fill  a  book  with  just  such 
tales  in  miniature  than  to  pad  out  half  a 
dozen  to  occupy  the  same  number  of  pages? 

In  the  one,  everything  is  left  to  the  imag- 
ination ;  in  the  other,  nothing.  One  is  a 
song  without  words,  the  other  a  well-studied 
harmony. 

Such  a  narrative,  if  I  am  not  unduly  con- 
fident, would  bring  out  powers  of  descrip- 
tion in  the  young  mind  that  would  do  more 
for  its  proper  development  than  a  hundred 
fairy  tales  of  two  syllables. 

The  Professor.  —  "I  am  ready  to  admit 
that  the  Editor's  story  might  be  used  as  a 


As  Talked  in  the  Smtctiim        237 

text  for  a  Saturday  afternoon  exercise.  One 
or  two  in  a  class  of  thirty  would  arise  to  its 
possibilities  ;  the  rest  would  probably  suggest 
where  the  boy  could  get  another  dog  cheap. 
The  young  mind  is  full  of  unconscious 
humor,  but  seldom  weighed  down  with 
artistic  pathos.  I  gave  out  as  a  subject  for 
composition,  '  Winter.'  My  school  was  up 
near  the  snow  line,  and  not  one  in  it  had  ever 
experienced  a  San  Francisco  winter,  although 
they  were  perfectly  familiar  with  the  legends 
of  roses  and  oranges  at  Christmas.  The 
average  result  of  what  I  obtained  would  read 
somewhat  as  follows  :  — 

" '  Winter  is  the  coldest  season  of  the  year,  be- 
cause it  comes  in  winter  mostly.  In  San  Francisco 
winter  comes  in  summer  and  their  Christmas  and 
Fourth  of  July  gets  all  kerfuddled.  I  wish  winter 
came  in  summer  in  this  country,  for  then  we  could 
go  skating  barefooted  and  we  could  snowball  with- 
out getting  our  fingers  cold.  It  snows  more  in  the 
winter  than  any  other  season.  This  is  because 
snow  seeks  its  own  altitude.  When  it  don't,  it  is 
not  snow.     A  wicked  boy  stole  my  skates  and  ran 


238        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

ofF  with  them,  and  I  couldn't  catch  him.  Ma 
says  judgment  will  overtake  him.  Well,  if  judg- 
ment does,  it  will  have  to  be  pretty  lively  in  its 
legs,  for  that  boy  can  run  bully.' 

"  The  result  of  an  examination  brought  a 
number  of  definitions  that  would  have  made 
Bill  Nye  famous. 

'  Anatomy  is  how  to  take  care  of  the  bones.* 
'  The  digestive  fluids  are  tea,  coffee,  rum,  beer, 

and  sometimes  alcohol.' 

'  The  pancreatic  juice  is  secreted  in  the  colon.' 
'  Five  important  organs   of  digestion   are    the 

heart,  chest,  liver,  brains,  and  gizzard.' 
'  Cursory  :     The  act  of  cursing.' 
'  Lambrequin  :     A  young  lamb.' 
'  Patriotic  :     My  Country  'tis  of  Thee.'  " 

"  Which  goes  to  prove  that  truth  is  funnier 
than  fiction,"  remarked  the  Reader.  "  I 
still  laugh  at  the  mistakes  in  pronunciation 
of  the  Sunday-school  Superintendent  of  my 
boyhood,  who  insisted  on  calling  Artaxerxes 
*  Arte  Texas,*  and  invariably  spoke  of  Joseph 
going  down  into  Egg-pit.  Still,  the  old 
style  of  pronunciation  and  spelling  is  chang- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        239 

ing  so  rapidly  that  who  knows  but  that  the 
next  generation  will  be  so  pronouncing 
Egypt.  Spelling-books  and  grammars  get 
old-fashioned  almost  as  rapidly  as  clothes. 
We  once  placed  the  accent  on  the  last  sylla- 
ble. Now  it  is  quite  the  thing  to  put  it  on 
the  first.  Remember  this,  if  you  wish  to  be 
considered  cultivated.  I  have  often  thought 
what  havoc,  say,  the  President  of  Harvard 
might  make  with  our  ever  changing  language, 
and  what  trouble  he  would  cause  us  plodders, 
by  transferring  the  accents  on  half  a  hundred 
common  words.  He  could  do  it  as  easily  as 
some  one  changed  per-fect'-ed  to  per'-fect-ed, 
Cle-o-pa'-tra  to  Cle-op'-a-tra,  com-par'-a-ble 
to  com'-par-a-ble,  op-po'-nent  to  op'-po-nent, 
in'-ter-est-ing  to  in-ter-est'-ing,  and  dec'-or- 
a-tive  to  de-cor'-a-tive." 

It  is  always  a  grave  question  whether  it 
is  worth  while  to  chronicle  the  trivial  every- 
day life  of  the  Sanctum,  and  yet  in  its  way 
it  reflects  the  doings  of  a  greater  world. 
There  are  people  that  you  never  would  be- 


240       As  Talked  in  the  Sanchim 

lieve  could  be  imposed  upon,  people  of 
judgment  and  experience,  and  yet  like  our 
hardy  old  Contributor  they  have  in  their 
time  trod  very  near  the  danger  line.  It 
seems  that  the  Contributor  had  received 
from  time  to  time  tempting  letters  from  a 
certain  New  York  firm  of  bankers  by  the 
suggestive  name  of  "  U.  R.  Green  Co." 
Judging  from  these,  it  would  appear  that 
U.  R.  Green  Co.  know  their  business. 
Everything  they  touch  turns  into  gold. 
They  are  philanthropists  as  well  as  specu- 
lators, and  are  willing,  for  a  small  sum  — 
two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  —  down,  to 
share  with  their  friends  this  coveted  power. 
It  is  never  for  an  instant  a  question  with 
them  how  the  cat  will  jump,  nor  does  it 
make  any  particular  difference  whether  the 
market  goes  up  or  down,  it  goes  their  way 
and  yours.  Twenty  per  cent  per  month  is 
what  they  guarantee,  although  they  gracefully 
intimate  that  thirty  per  cent  may  be  expected. 
In  spite  of  himself  the  Contributor  fell  to 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        241 

figuring.  In  five  months  his  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  would  be  ^v^  hundred  dol- 
lars ;  in  ten  months,  one  thousand  dollars ; 
in  fifteen  months,  two  thousand  dollars ;  in 
twenty  months,  four  thousand  dollars  ;  and 
in  twenty-five  months  he  w6uld  be  worth 
eight  thousand  dollars.  Now  our  Contribu- 
tor has  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  in  the 
savings  bank  that  is  only  drawing  five  per 
cent  a  year,  and  the  fever  of  speculation  was 
upon  him.  The  deposit,  however,  is  pay- 
able to  the  order  of  Mrs.  Contributor,  and 
a  family  council  revealed  the  fact  that  Mrs. 
C.  had  for  some  days  been  pondering  over 
an  advertisement  that  had  been  running 
in  The  Housewife  5  Friend^  which  read  as 
follows :  — 

"  A  Fortune.  —  I  have  a  simple  scheme  for 
making  money  rapidly,  which  I  will  mail  to  any 
one  on  receipt  of  ten  cents.  Address  I.  M.  Innit, 
Banker.     Box  D,  New  York." 

Mrs.  C.  did  not  wish  to  risk  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars,  but  v/as  willing   to 


242        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

invest  ten  cents  for  so  promising  a  receipt. 
As  a  compromise,  it  was  agreed  to  test  the 
advertisement  first,  and  if  it  turned  out  sat- 
isfactory to  look  farther  into  the  U.  R. 
Green  Co.'s  proposals. 

In  twelve  days  the  following  reply  came 
to  hand,  which  was  noted  rather  for  its  force 
than  for  its  eloquence. 

"  Dear  Madam  :  You  ask  me  to  tell  you 
how  to  make  more  money  rapidly.  Fish  for 
suckers  as  I  do.  —  I.  M.  Innit." 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how 
many  times  a  month  so  palpable  a  fraud 
entices  dimes  from  a  good-natured  public. 
It  would  hardly  seem  possible  that  any  one 
could  be  taken  in  by  it,  and  yet  it  must  re- 
quire at  least  two  hundred  answers  a  month 
to  pay  for  the  one-inch  "ad."  in  The  House- 
wife s  Friend,  I  remember  an  "ad."  that 
ran  in  all  the  country  papers  in  Southern 
New  York,  where  potato  bugs  luxuriated, 
advising  the  farmer  that  for  ten  cents  a 
receipt  for  the  absolute  extermination  of  the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        243 

little  pest  would  be  sent.  Hundreds  ac- 
cepted the  invitation,  and  in  reply  received 
two  small  blocks  of  wood  and  the  following 
printed  directions :  — 

"  Catch  the  bug  and  place  it  on  the  block 
marked  A,  then  press  firmly  with  block  B,  and 
the  bug  will  cease  to  trouble  you." 

The  Parson,  — "  Which  reminds  me  of 
the  story  of  the  tramp  who  contracted  to 
kill  every  rat  in  a  roadside  inn  for  a  dinner 
and  a  drink.  The  landlord  accepted  the 
offer  and  paid  in  advance.  When  he  had 
finished  his  repast,  the  tramp  selected  a 
formidable  club,  quietly  seated  himself  on 
the  lawn  outside  within  a  circle  of  admiring 
villagers,  and  said  in  stentorian  tones  as  he 
rolled  up  his  shirt  sleeves,  "  Now,  bring  on 
your  rats  ! " 

We  realized  that  the  kindly  Parson  had 
related  the  familiar  old  tale  to  cover  the 
Contributor's  retreat  and  cut  off  the  Artist's 
jeers. 

The    Typewriter,  —  "A    lady    wishes    to 


244       ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

know  if  you  will  give  her  a  year's  subscrip- 
tion for  a  twenty-verse  poem  on  '  Suffering 
Cuba'?" 

The  Office  Boy,  —  "  Proof !  " 


XX 

As    children,  we    told   fortunes  on   the 
buttons  of  our  elders'  coats  thus :  — 

"  Rich  man,  Poor  man,  Beggar  man,  Thief  j 
Doctor,  Lawyer,  Merchant,  Chief.'* 

If  we  particularly  disliked  the  victim,  it 
was  arranged  so  the  stop  would  come  on 
"  ^^gg^^  ^^^ "  o^  "  Thief."  I  do  not 
know  who  was  the  inventor  of  the  formula. 
I  wish  I  did,  as  the  discovery  would  make 
both  the  unknown  author's  reputation  and 
my  own.  Offhand  I  will  hazard  it  came 
from  the  Orient,  for  there  I  found  that  to 
be  a  beggar  was  as  much  a  profession  as  to 
be  a  doctor.  The  Contributor  was  com- 
plaining of  the  very  unprofessional  conduct 
of  a  beggar  on  Battery  Street,  who  first 
asked  for  the  price  of  a  drink,  pleading  that 
he   was    the   father   of  a  family,  and   then 


246        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

cursed  long  and  deep  because  of  a  prof- 
fered soup  ticket.  The  man  was  not  a  pro- 
fessional, or  he  would  not  have  so  laid 
himself  open  to  a  charge  of  "conduct  un- 
becoming a  gentleman  and  a  beggar."  A 
professional  would  have  said,  "  Beg  your 
pardon,"  passed  over  to  the  other  side  of 
the  street,  and  told  his  story  to  the  Poet, 
whose  heart  is  always  open,  but  whose 
pocket  is  empty^ 

A  beggar  must  be  a  reader  of  character. 
On  Decoration  Day  I  met  one  who  had 
taken  the  thirty-third  degree.  The  very 
tones  of  his  voice  made  me  falter,  and  sent 
my  hand  pocketward.  Before  he  had  fin- 
ished his  conte  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
that  not  less  than  four  bits  would  answer. 
There  was  something  about  him  that  sug- 
gested a  noble  in  exile  or  a  great  soul  beat- 
ing itself  to  death  against  unresponsive 
rocks.  "  Can  you  blame  me,"  he  pleaded, 
"  for  begging  for  the  bare  necessities,  when 
two  million  bushels  of  life-giving  wheat  from 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        247 

the  golden  fields  of  California  were  left  to 
the  mercy  of  the  weevil  in  the  elevators  of 
Contra  Costa,  waiting  while  their  millionnaire 
owners  cornered  the  market  ?  What  was 
destroyed  would  have  saved  the  famine  in 
India  or  fed  the  unemployed  of  the  Pacific 
Coast.  Where  is  the  justice  ?  But  who 
am  I  that  I  should  judge  my  neighbor  ?  " 
"Amen!"  said  I.  And  I  was  glad  that 
for  once  my  fifty  cents  were  well  invested. 
However,  I  do  not  believe  in  beggars,  and 
I  will  ^ager  that  the  Contributor  was  right 
in  refusing  to  divide  his  slender  salary  with 
the  blackguard  who  reviled  him. 

OflF  and  on  for  a  month  I  have  noticed 
an  able-bodied  man  of  middle  age  issue 
from  the  historic  precincts  of  the  "What 
Cheer  House."  He  would  walk  leisurely 
up  Montgomery  Street  to  Market  and  turn 
up  Market,  continuing  his  stroll  as  far  as 
the  New  City  Hall,  returning  by  way  of 
Union  Square,  where  he  would  rest  and  nap 
in  the  sun.     The  regularity  and  method  of 


248        As  Talked  in  the  Sanchtm 

these  strolls,  combined  with  the  fact  that  he 
from  time  to  time  paused  to  speak  a  civil 
word  to  some  well-dressed  pedestrian,  ex- 
cited my  curiosity.  A  brief  investigation 
developed  the  fact  that  the  man  was  a  beg- 
gar, and  also  that  he  was  very  successful. 
Twice  I  gave  him  a  short  bit.  One  day  I 
met  him  in  Union  Square.  The  fog  was 
rolling  in  from  Golden  Gate,  and  only  here 
and  there  a  tramp,  too  drunk  to  notice  the 
moisture  of  the  seats,  marred  the  landscape. 
My  friend  was  leaning  against  a  tree,  deeply 
intent  on  some  figures  in  a  greasy  note- 
book. I  stopped  in  front  of  him  and  he 
looked  up,  slipping  the  book  into  his 
pocket. 

"  How*s  business?"  I  asked. 

He  commenced  to  whine. 

"  Never  mind  your  regular  story,"  I  inter- 
rupted, "  I  know  it.  Answer  my  questions 
like  a  man,  and  you  may  add  a  dollar  to  your 
bank  account." 

After  a  little  preliminary  skirmishing  he 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        249 

waxed  confidential,  and  showed  a  pride  in 
his  profession  and  an  unhallowed  joy  in  his 
success  that  was  gratifying. 

"  I  make  it  a  rule,"  in  the  firm,  clear 
tones  of  a  stockbroker,  "  never  to  walk 
less  than  one  hundred  blocks  a  day.  It 
keeps  up  my  muscle,  aids  digestion,  and 
insures  a  good  appetite." 

"  And  a  thirst,"  I  commented. 

"And  a  thirst,"  he  went  on,  unabashed. 
"It  is  a  very  poor  block  that  does  not 
average  two  and  one-half  cents.  Two 
blocks  will  more  often  net  me  ten  cents." 

He  consulted  the  aforementioned  book. 

"Yes,  the  average  of  the  past  six  months 
is  five  dollars  a  day,  that  is  just  five  cents  a 
block.  I  have  been  on  this  beat  nearly  a 
year  now,  and  I  have  my  regular  customers. 
Excuse  me  a  minute." 

He  passed  through  the  fog  to  the  other 
side  of  the  street  and  touched  his  hat  to  an 
elderly  acquaintance  of  mine,  who  was  com- 
ing  down    the    broad   steps    of  the    Pacific 


250        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

Union  Club.  In  a  moment  he  had  returned 
with  a  bright  new  quarter  in  his  hand. 

"  I  told  him  my  wife  was  better  to-day/' 
he  said,  smiling  pleasantly,  "and  that  she 
prayed  for  him  night  and  day.  Well,  so 
long !  Your  dollar  passes  the  limit  to-day 
—  and  business  is  over." 

About  a  week  after  he  was  in  court 
charged  with  vagrancy.  An  officer  had 
been  watching  as  well  as  myself.  With  a 
great  show  of  indignation  my  old  friend 
arose  and  produced  a  bag  containing  four 
twenty-dollar  gold  pieces  and  enough  change 
to  bring  the  total  to  eighty-seven  dollars. 
He  was  discharged  for  want  of  enough  direct 
evidence,  but  he  had  an  enemy  in  the  hard- 
hearted officer  who  made  it  his  business  to 
watch  him.  Within  another  week  there 
was  evidence  enough  to  send  him  to  the 
workhouse. 

The  Reader.  — "  Can  you  blame  him  ? 
Five  dollars  a  day  is  the  wages  of  a  first- 
class  mechanic.     Why  should  not   begging 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        251 

become  a  profession  when  people  are  such 
easy  game.  The  only  thing  to  do  is  to 
call  a  policeman  every  time  a  fellow  solicits 
alms,  and  yet  if  I  did  such  a  thing  I  should 
be  pointed  out  on  the  street  as  a  warning  to 
all  tender-hearted  children." 

The  Parson.  —  "I  believe  that  I  have 
given  alms  where  they  were  deserved ;  but 
I  have  never  yet  been  quite  sure." 

The  Artist.  —  "  For  the  sake  of  my  profes- 
sion I  trust  the  Sanctum  will  not  completely 
abolish  beggars.  Who  else  would  supply 
color  and  life  to  Italy  ?  What  would  Notre 
Dame  or  St.  Peter's  be  without  them } 
Even  the  Pyramids  and  Pompey's  Pillar 
would  lose  half  their  charm,  stripped  of  their 
bands  of  backsheesh  gatherers.  Art  must 
come  to  the  rescue.  The  beggar  is  thrice 
welcome  to  all  he  gets  from  me." 

The  Reviewer,  —  "  Your  cure,  then,  must 
be  starvation." 

The  F arson.  —  "I  once  heard  a  rather 
curious  confession  from  a  professional  beg- 


252        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

gar,  which  if  true,  and  I  beHeve  it  was, 
opened  my  eyes  to  the  reckless  way  in 
which  American  beggars  are  made.  '  I  had 
been  keeping  a  sidewalk  stand  for  five  years,* 
he  said.  *  I  worked  hard  and  earned  from 
three  to  four  dollars  a  week.  On  that  I 
lived.  One  night  when  I  started  to  go 
home  by  the  Mission  street-cars  I  found 
that  my  pocket  had  been  picked.  It  was 
too  far  to  walk,  so  I  decided  to  try  and 
borrow  a  nickel.  The  first  man  to  whom 
I  told  my  story  gave  me  a  quarter  without 
hesitation.  All  the  way  home  I  thought 
over  it.  A  quarter  was  as  much  as  I  made 
clear  at  my  stand  many  a  day.  It  all  ended 
by  my  selling  out  and  going  to  begging, 
always  telling  my  first  story.  I  have  done 
pretty  well  since  and  like  the  business.*  " 

The   Reviewer,  — "  Charge    him    to    the 
Artist." 

The  Occasional  Visitor,  —  "In  reading  the 
resolutions  passed  by  the  Board  of  Council- 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        253 

men  of  Canton,  Mississippi,  it  struck  me 
that  bulls  grow  fat  on  the  herbage  of  this 
country  as  well  as  on  Erin's  soil.     Listen: — 

'  I.  Resolved^  by  this  Council,  that  we 
build  a  new  jail. 

'  2.  Resolved^  that  the  new  jail  be  built 
out  of  the  materials  of  the  old  jail. 

'3.  Resolved^  \}c\zX.  the  old  jail  be  used  till 
the  new  jail  is  finished.*  " 

The  Poet,  —  "Which  is  paralleled  by  Doc- 
tor Johnson's  famous  dictum  that  every 
momental  inscription  should  be  in  Latin ; 
for  that,  being  a  dead  language,  it  will 
always  live." 

There  must  be  some  remedy  for  the 
beggar,  some  scheme  whereby  the  profes- 
sional "unemployed"  can  be  turned  into 
good  citizens.  Joaquin  Miller  tried  it  in 
his  little  ranch  on  the  Heights,  but  failed. 
•Municipalities  have  tried,  and  philanthro- 
pists since  the  time  of  Nero  have  under- 
taken the  job  ;   but  only   the  cannibal  has 


254        ^^  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

succeeded.  The  beggars  own  the  world ; 
from  the  picturesque  knaves  of  the  "  Arabian 
Nights "  to  our  own  Chinatown  bummers, 
they  fill  a  place  in  the  great  human  comedy 
that  force  and  education  cannot  usurp.  They 
are  more  of  a  drain  on  a  nation  than  ban- 
ditti and  a  far  greater  menace,  and  yet 
every  scheme  for  their  regeneration  falls  pow- 
erless. After  all,  they  may  be  happy  in 
their  way,  and  life  is  fleeting. 

The  old  fellow  who  twice  a  year  would 
slip  into  my  neighbor's  back-yard  and  have 
a  fainting  fit  from  feigned  starvation  believed 
himself  as  great  an  actor  as  Booth  —  and 
he  was.  His  contortions  were  awful,  and 
the  smell  of  food  caused  him  to  lose  con- 
sciousness. He  fairly  earned  the  nickels 
that  were  showered  upon  him  from  second- 
story  windows,  and  no  one  ever  complained 
to  the  police.  I  believe  if  every  vagrant 
in  the  city  were  sent  to  the  poor  farm  to- 
morrow, a  new  and  just  as  vigorous  a  crop 
would  spring  up  in  twenty-four  hours. 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        255 

The  Pastor,  —  "I  would  that  good  things 
were  as  tenacious  of  life.'* 

I  wish  to  record  here,  as  I  close  this 
random  report  of  things  "  As  Talked  in  the 
Sanctum,"  that  I  believe  that  patriotism  needs 
culture,  and  that  it  is  an  element  in  man 
that  flourishes  like  religion  when  the  soil  is 
prepared  for  it.  For  a  century  and  more  we 
have  been  worshipping  the  heroes  of  other 
countries.  I  once  related  to  the  Sanctum 
my  feelings  at  the  Hotel  des  Invalides  as  I 
stood  between  a  French  peasant  in  wooden 
shoes  and  an  old  oflicer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  silently  worshipping  at  the  stately 
tomb  of  the  greatest  of  all  Frenchmen.  It 
seemed  then  that  there  could  be  no  Ameri- 
can counterpart,  that  no  American  shrine 
would  ever  draw  such  never  failing  crowds 
as  come  daily  there.  Not  long  ago,  when  I 
was  in  New  York,  I  took  my  little  boy 
to  the  tomb  of  Grant,  at  Riverside.  I  did 
not  expect  to  find  more  than  a  corporal's 
guard  of  sightseers.       I  admit  that  curiosity 


256        As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum 

drew  me.  The  name  of  Grant  seemed 
plebeian  by  the  side  of  that  of  the  French 
Emperor.  Vicksburg,  Donelson,  the  Wil- 
derness, Appomattox,  ran  flat  alongside 
Marengo,  Austerlitz,  Jena,  Friedland,  and 
Waterloo.  One  was  the  soldier  of  a  repub- 
lic, the  other  was  the  Man  of  Destiny.  The 
great  gray  dome  that  surmounts  the  remains 
of  our  soldier  is  not  hedged  round  with 
historic  associations  or  emblazoned  with 
regal  memories,  and  yet  I  was  not  alone  in 
my  pilgrimage.  There  was  a  line  three 
deep,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long,  passing  in 
and  around  the  crypt.  It  was  not  one 
crowd,  but  many,  and  all  day  long  it  swayed 
in  a  ceaseless  throng.  For  a  month  this 
had  been  going  on.  Every  head  was  uncov- 
ered as  we  entered  the  stately  sarcophagus, 
and  the  soft  light  from  above  that  fell  on 
the  tomb  carried  with  it  the  same  idealiza- 
tion that  enshrouds  the  last  resting  place  of 
that  other  warrior.  The  reverence  was  as 
genuine   in  the  one  as   in  the  other  —  the 


As  Talked  in  the  Sanctum        257 

homage  paid  this  republican  hero  was  as  sin- 
cere as  that  lavished  on  Frenchmen's  demi- 
god. For  the  first  time  I  appreciated  at 
their  full  value  the  power  and  benefit  of 
such  national  shrines.  About  it,  from  year 
to  year,  will  crystallize  a  love  of  country  and 
a  pride  of  home.  It  is  something  that  can 
be  pointed  to  —  something  tangible.  On  it 
will  feed  patriotism ;  and  the  tomb  of  the  man 
who  said,  "  Let  us  have  peace,"  will  become, 
to  unborn  generations,  all  that  the  golden 
dome  of  the  InvaUdes  is  to  France. 


\ 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

RenawwdiaftOks  are  subjea  to  immediate  recall. 


--^pyg^^fe^tp 


-M-n^-mn 


fXQ-  8t983    - 


arc.  cm.  JAN  27*83 


LD  21A-60m-3,'65 
(F2336sl0)476B 


General  Library     , 
Umversity  of  California 
Berkeley 


.- 

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11' 

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